Health: Eating badly costs each Italian about 300 euros a year

Wrong diets and eating patterns cost each Italian about 300 euros more per year and affect the probability of having diseases. With a double risk: the negative impact on health and, more generally, the growth of economic and social costs. A ‘dangerous link’ illustrated, with data in hand, today by the Aletheia Foundation – an Italian scientific think tank – with the patronage of the Ministry of Health, with the report ‘Diseases, food and health’. The report was illustrated by the Scientific Committee of the Foundation, chaired by Stefano Lucchini and directed by Riccardo Fargione, with the coordination of the scientific activities of Antonio Gasbarrini, dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

In 2023, excess weight in Italy affected 46.4% of the adult population, with a growth of 7.1% of overweight people and 36.4% of those affected by obesity in the last twenty years. Added to this is an increase in the incidence of diabetes, which went from 6.3% in 2021 to 6.6% in 2022, with a growth of 65% in the last twenty years. According to the report, the healthcare costs related to these diseases today lead to an annual contraction of European GDP of 3.3%. Going into detail, the increase in overweight linked to incorrect nutritional styles represents 9% of national healthcare spending and costs each Italian an annual ‘extra tax’ of 289 euros.

In this sense, the Mediterranean diet, an intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO, represents values ​​that contrast this phenomenon. “The Mediterranean diet – specified Claudio Franceschi, professor emeritus of Immunology at the University of Bologna, one of the authors of the research – indisputably represents a key element for the health of citizens because it has a series of favorable effects on body composition, the chronic inflammatory state characteristic of aging and also on a whole series of cognitive parameters”. Hence, therefore, the risks of high consumption of ultra-processed foods. The report highlights, in fact, how a 20% reduction in calories consumed from foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fats could prevent 688 thousand chronic diseases in Italy by 2050 and save 278 million euros a year in health spending: approximately 7 billion over the next 25 years.

“Today’s event – said Riccardo Fargione, director of Aletheia – consolidates a path started with the Ministry of Health. We often witness misinformation and exploitation that push towards models of consumption that are harmful to citizens. We cannot allow this in a country like Italy, which boasts a culture and a food and wine heritage of absolute excellence. But we cannot allow it on a global level either, for the good of citizens and our children. And this is why with the Aletheia Foundation we have equipped ourselves with a team of doctors and scientists of the highest profile to try to dismantle false myths and bring order to a very delicate issue”.

The research also focuses on the guarantee of quality control of the products consumed, both in terms of nutritional composition and in terms of food safety. Italian products are in fact the most controlled by European authorities (over 11.3 thousand samples analyzed), followed by French (about 10 thousand) and German (just under 8.7 thousand) ones. In comparison, about 10.3% of samples of extra-EU origin recorded levels of contamination from pesticides above the legal limits, a good 5 times higher than those of EU origin (2%).