In the last years the promotion of alternative food supply networks has grown in many developed countries as tool of Rural Development. There are evidences about the potential beneficial role of these networks in promoting healthy eating habits becoming also an important measure of health policy. Our study explore the effect of the local food supply networks on adult Italian BMI taking into account for each individual the relative socio-economic status, the eating habits and other social behaviors. We use a cross-section of individual-level data, from the Multipurpose Survey of Households, matched with regional-level data on food outlets density and we adopt an IV estimation method to account the food stores potential endogenity. Results show that having access to alternative food supply network lead to a reduction on adult Italian BMI and contribute to improve human health. and consequently to reduce public health expenditure.

L’incidenza dell’obesità e del sovrappeso ha raggiungo livelli estremamente rilevanti soprattutto nei bambini e negli individui in età evolutiva. La letteratura fornisce diverse indicazioni su quali possano essere le variabili sensibili che permettano di mettere a punto politiche mirate alla sua riduzione. Ciononostante, il presente lavoro si propone di andare più a fondo nell’esplorazione del problema attraverso l’analisi degli stili alimentari, che nei teenager possono essere molto diversi rispetto agli adulti, delle deviazioni come consumo di alcol e spuntini fuori pasto, e dello stato psico-fisico che in questo studio ipotizziamo sia concausa dell’incremento del BMI. Il presente lavoro è basato su dati riguardanti 900 individui dell’area di Foggia. I risultati consentono di profilare tre stili alimentari e l’analisi di regressione permette di evidenziare diverse cause di incremento del BMI per ciascun gruppo individuato. I risultati sembrerebbero avvalorare l’ipotesi secondo cui le cause di sovrappeso e obesità risultano differenti per individui appartenenti a diversi stili alimentari.

Achieving a low-carbon and sustainable economy is a long-term goal that EU aims at achieving in the next few decades: the potential role of bioeconomy is likely to make the difference, and in particular, the EU aquaculture and the seafood processing industry has the potential to contribute substantially to the emergence of bioeconomies (for instance through new – niche - markets for bio-based products such as algae, etc). In this particular framework, understanding how to enhance cleaner and more sustainable consumption patterns is preliminary to the transition towards more equitable and sustainable markets. The present analysis investigates the role of consumers’ attitudes with respect to sustainable attributes (namely food safety and respect of the environment) in order to suggest on their potential role to catalyze the transition toward bioeconomies. Up to date, empirical investigations on this issue are limited to few markets, and studies on aquaculture are particularly scant. The gap is reduced by the present analysis: it has been implemented a survey on fish consumers to investigate how their attitudes toward food safety and environmental issues tend to influence consumption choices, and it is shown that those attitudes are important determinants of consumers choices. Put differently, a cleaner and more sustainable supply chain (i.e through a safer, and environmental friendly product) is likely to enhance consumption of oysters. To the extent that policy makers, producers, and taxpayers are interested in enhancing sustainable bioeconomies, understanding the relevance of attitudes toward food safety and environmental sustainability is an important and pressing goal. The analysis, novel in its application to a high quality product, speaks in this direction and will help understanding how to accelerate the transition to sustainable bioeconomies.

La società ha come oggetto: ricerca e sviluppo sperimentale nel campo delle biotecnologie, produzione di altri prodotti alimentari nca (lieviti), produzione dei derivati del latte (fermenti lattici)