Cross-Country Nutrition Transition Studies

Over the years Barry Popkin and colleagues from across the globe have worked together to examine cross-country relationships. Combining these studies with in-depth longitudinal studies has allowed much of his research to be generalized globally. Topics studied have included:

· Vegetable oil: There have been very rapid increases in vegetable oil intake across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia

· Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN food balance data: Along with international data on gross national product and urbanization show how increasingly lower income countries could consume the high fat-based diets that were once found only in very rich countries

· Sweetening of the globe's diet: How major growth in added sugar intake was occurring across lower- and middle-income countries in the past several decades.