Beijing, China, May 18, 2021 -- May 17 to May 23 is the annual "National Nutrition Week". During this period, Herbalife, the world-renowned American nutrition company, officially released the results of the "Household Scientific Diet Awareness and Behavior Survey".

The theme of this year's Nutrition Week is "Rational Diet and Nutrition for All Families", which aims to promote rational diet in families and facilitate the formation and consolidation of healthy eating habits. Previously, Herbalife commissioned OnePoll, a well-known market research company, to conduct a global survey on the awareness and behavior of scientific diets in families. The survey was conducted for 9,000 respondents in 21 countries around the world and lasted for about two months. All respondents in China were adults over 18 years old, of which 55% were women and 73% were parents. The survey questionnaire consisted of 25 questions, covering two main parts: the first part was about people's awareness of balanced nutrition and the concept of "Balanced Diet for Chinese Residents" and their current nutrition balance; the second part was about the diet and nutrition of families and children.

By participating in this research, Herbalife hopes to support the industry and society to better understand the current situation of family nutrition as well as the public's awareness and behavior towards scientific dietary concepts, and to help improve people's nutritional literacy," said Guo Mu, President and Global Senior Vice President of Herbalife China. As a global nutrition company with a history of more than 40 years, Herbalife has always been committed to spreading scientific nutrition concepts to the public. In the future, we will continue to actively help improve the nutrition and health habits of Chinese consumers and contribute to the implementation of 'Healthy China'."

Core insights of the "Household Scientific Diet Awareness and Behavior Survey

Awareness of the concept of balanced nutrition is relatively good, but strict compliance is still difficult

The results of this survey show that 95% of the respondents are familiar with the concept of "balanced nutrition"; 78% of the respondents said they understand what kind of food to eat to achieve a healthy and balanced diet; meanwhile, they are "very familiar" and "very familiar" with the "balanced diet pagoda for Chinese residents". Meanwhile, 75% of the respondents were "very familiar" and "somewhat familiar" with the "Balanced Diet for Chinese Residents". From the research results, we can see that in recent years, with the joint efforts of government departments, industry associations, industry enterprises and all walks of life, the popularization of nutrition and health knowledge for the public has achieved remarkable results, and the concepts of "balanced nutrition" and "reasonable diet" have been deeply rooted in people's hearts. The concept of "balanced nutrition" and "reasonable diet" has been deeply rooted in people's hearts and minds, and the awareness level of ordinary people has reached a fairly high level.

However, at the same time, 67% of the respondents still think that they or their family members are facing the situation of unbalanced nutrition; only 18% of the respondents think that they can achieve a diet in line with the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents". When asked why, the most frequently cited reasons included: "During the epidemic, I went to the supermarket less often and could not stock up on fresh food" (66%), "It was too much trouble to follow the guidelines" (48%), "I did not have much time to prepare daily food" (44%).

The results of the survey show that there is a situation that "it is easy to know but difficult to do" for a reasonable diet, and the general public generally has difficulty in following the dietary guidelines strictly in daily life, among which the important reasons cannot be ignored are "fear of trouble" and "lack of time". One of the important reasons that cannot be ignored is "fear of trouble" and "lack of time".

"Generation Z" is eager to improve their nutritional health, but their scientific knowledge of nutritional concepts is relatively weak

In the survey, on the question of "How familiar you are with the balanced diet pagoda for Chinese residents", the lowest percentage of "Generation Z" (post-95 and post-00) aged 18-24 was 63%, which was not only significantly lower than that of 25-40 year olds, but also lower than that of 41-56 year olds. It is not only significantly lower than the 80% of the 25-40 year old group, but even lower than the 68% of the 41-56 year old group.

When asked whether they face nutritional imbalance, 51% of "Generation Z" chose "yes", lower than 72% of 25-40 year olds and 59% of 41-56 year olds. This shows that "Generation Z" is more confident in their own nutritional status.

Traditionally, it seems that only the middle-aged and elderly groups pay special attention to nutrition and health issues. However, in recent years, more and more post-90s and even post-95s groups also focus on health and wellness, and hope to help improve their overall health through the scientific use of nutritional supplements and other means. "Health and wellness before it's too late" has become the consensus of many young friends. According to a report by CCTV Finance in October 2020, the proportion of post-90s among the buyers of nutritional supplements has reached 25%.

The comprehensive research results show that, on the one hand, the "Generation Z" group has a strong desire to improve their nutritional health; on the other hand, their mastery of scientific nutrition concepts is still inadequate, and there is still much room for improvement in dietary and nutritional habits.

Parents are generally worried about their children's balanced nutrition, and call for the whole society to work together to effectively solve the problem. In this survey, as many as 81% of parents said they often worry about the impact of "unbalanced nutrition" on their children. At the same time, parents hope that the community will work together to improve this problem in various ways. For example, 50% of respondents hope that "schools will provide simple and healthy recipes for parents"; 49% of respondents said that parents need to pay more attention to a balanced diet for their children and families, indicating that there is still room for parents to further improve the importance of balanced nutrition for their children. It is worth noting that 89% of parents "strongly agreed" and "somewhat agreed" when asked if they were concerned about the long-term effects on their children's health due to unbalanced nutrition during the epidemic. The majority of parents said they "strongly agree" and "somewhat agree".

As a result of the epidemic, the amount of time students spend studying online at home has increased significantly in many areas of the country since last year compared to the previous year. Children and adolescents are in a critical period of growth and behavior formation, and the nutritional and dietary status of living at home for extended periods of time requires extra attention from parents. Many children are relatively casual in their work and diet at home, and some may rely too much on take-out, unhealthy snacks or even "junk food", which may have adverse effects on their health.

The results of the study show that parents are generally concerned about the balanced nutrition of their children. At the same time, parents, schools and the community need to pay more attention to the nutritional dietary status of children and adolescents, especially to provide some guidance to students' dietary situation during home study, so as to jointly promote the healthy growth of children.

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