Nutrition transition and dietary energy availability in Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism

Abstract

After the economic transition of the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a rapid increase in overweight and obesity in many countries of Eastern Europe. This article describes changing availability of dietary energy from major dietary components since the transition to free-market economic systems among Eastern European nations, using food balance data obtained at national level for the years 1990–92 and 2005 from the FAOSTAT-Nutrition database. Dietary energy available to the East European nations satellite to the former Soviet Union (henceforth, Eastern Europe) was greater than in the nations of the former Soviet Union. Among the latter, the Western nations of the former Soviet Union had greater dietary energy availability than the Eastern and Southern nations of the former Soviet Union. The higher energy availability in Eastern Europe relative to the nations of the former Soviet Union consists mostly of high-protein foods. There has been no significant change in overall dietary energy availability to any category of East European nation between 1990–1992 and 2005, indicating that, at the macro-level, increasing rates of obesity in Eastern European countries cannot be attributed to increased dietary energy availability. The most plausible macro-level explanations for the obesity patterns observed in East European nations are declines in physical activity, increased real income, and increased consumption of goods that contribute to physical activity decline: cars, televisions and computers.

Introduction

The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 20th century initiated dramatic economic, political and social changes across Eastern Europe which heightened uncertainties in all facets of life. However, the breakup of communist regimes and the adoption of free-market economic and democratic systems took place in heterogeneous ways, although it generally included three simultaneous processes: liberalization and stabilization; institutional reform; and microeconomic restructuring of existing productive capacity (Zienkowski, 1998). In Poland and Hungary, transformation was negotiated and treaty-based, while in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic, popular pressure brought to bear on communist elites lead to their capitulation. In Bulgaria, transformation was steered by edict from dominant political authorities. In the former Soviet Union, new nations emerged and developed in different ways. On the one hand, the Baltic countries were efficient reformers; on the other, the new countries of Middle Asia became immersed in local, ethic and/or boundary conflicts, and catastrophic economic situations persisted (Ekiert, 2000). According to Ekiert (2000), four factors were decisive in determining the character and dynamics of transformation: the legacy of the past and the economic conditions persisting at the time of change; the institutional choices taken; the degree of external assistance available; and the policies of the new governments.

The most economically successful of the different Eastern European nations since the collapse of communism have been four countries in the Eastern European Communist Bloc: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland; and three satellite nations of the former Soviet Union: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. These nations were the first to enter the European Union. The two nations that entered most recently, Romania and Bulgaria, have been less successful. Three satellite nations of the former Soviet Union, the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, remain economically and politically tied to Russia, while the three Caucasian countries Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia remain mainly rural and economically less-developed relative to Russia and Eastern Europe. The five Central Asian countries, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan remain the least developed economically, with much lower population sizes and densities (Stillman, 2006). Detailed comparisons of, and changes that have taken place in these countries are described elsewhere (see Stillman, 2006, Keane and Prasad, 1999, Ekiert, 2000, World Bank, 1999).

Despite variation in economic and political strategies, and social and cultural differences among these nations, economic, political and social change have contributed, with varying intensity and duration, to major changes in lifestyle, diet, dietary habits and knowledge of health promoting behaviour. These changes have contributed to significant effects on human biology, including increasing levels of: chronic disease (Stillman, 2006, Wróblewska, 2002, Lipowicz, 2007); overweight and obesity (Koziel et al., 2004, Koziel et al., 2006, Zellner et al., 2004); and mortality (Kalediene and Petrauskiene, 2004, Kolodziej et al., in press). With respect to overweight and obesity rates, both increased rapidly after the economic transition of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Increased rates of both have been documented for children and adults in East Germany (Frye and Heinrich, 2003, Zellner et al., 2004, Zeller et al., 2007), the Czech Republic (Vignerova et al., 2004, Vignerova et al., 2007) and Poland (Bielicki et al., 2001, Bielicki et al., 2005, Koziel et al., 2004). However, it is not clear to what extent dietary changes, especially increased intakes of dietary energy, may have contributed to these patterns of overweight and obesity. In this article, changing availability of dietary energy from major dietary components since the transition to free-market economic systems among Eastern European nations is described, using food balance data obtained at national level for the years 1990–92 and 2005 (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2007).