ORIGINAL ARTICLE Personal, social and environmental predictors of daily fruit and vegetable intake in 11-year-old children in nine European countries I De Bourdeaudhuij 1 , S te Velde 2 , J Brug 2 , P Due 3 , M Wind 4 , C Sandvik 5 , L Maes 6 , A Wolf 7 , C Perez Rodrigo 8 , A Yngve 9 , I Thorsdottir 10 , M Rasmussen 3 , I Elmadfa 7 , B Franchini 11 and K-I Klepp 12 1 Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; 2 EMGO Institute, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 3 Department of Social Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; 4 Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; 5 Faculty of Psychology, Department of Education and Health Promotion, Research Centre for Health Promotion, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; 6 Department of Public Health, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; 7 Institute for Nutritional Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 8 Community Nutrition Unit of Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain; 9 Unit for Preventive Nutrition, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; 10 Unit for Nutrition Research, Landspitali University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland; 11 Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal and 12 Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Objective: To investigate potential personal, social and physical environmental predictors of daily fruit intake and daily vegetable intake in 11-year-old boys and girls in nine European countries. Subjects: The total sample size was 13 305 (90.4% participation rate). Results: Overall, 43.2% of the children reported to eat fruit every day, 46.1% reported to eat vegetables every day. Daily fruit intake and daily vegetable intake was mainly associated with knowledge of the national recommendations, positive self-efficacy, positive liking and preference, parental modeling and demand and bringing fruit to school (odds ratio between 1.40 and 2.42, Po0.02). These factors were associated fairly consistently with daily fruit intake across all nine European countries, implying that a rather uniform intervention strategy to promote fruit can be used across Europe. For vegetables, the pattern was, however, less consistent. Differences between countries in cooking and preparing vegetables might be responsible for this larger diversity. Conclusions: This study showed that especially a combination of personal and social factors is related to daily fruit and vegetable intake in schoolchildren. This shows that a comprehensive multilevel intervention strategy based upon a series of individual and social correlates will be most promising in the promotion of daily fruit and vegetable intake in children. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2008) 62, 834–841; doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602794; published online 16 May 2007 Keywords: health promotion; determinant; correlate; Pro children; fruit and vegetable consumption Introduction Epidemiological evidence suggests that regular consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables is associated with lower risks of certain types of cancer (Paolini et al., 2003), heart disease (Joshipura et al., 2001) and obesity (Pesa and Turner, 2001). Nevertheless, people in many countries, including children eat less fruit and vegetables than recommended. A number of international recommendations and population targets have been published regarding the desirable level of consumption of fruit and vegetables for adults and children (Yngve et al., 2005). Guidelines are expressed in portions or in grams and considerable differences in recommendations appear between countries. In addition, there is inconsistency about including or excluding for example potatoes, fruit juice, vegetable soup and tubers (Yngve et al., 2005). In general, all Received 28 April 2006; revised 26 March 2007; accepted 11 April 2007; published online 16 May 2007 Correspondence: Professor I De Bourdeaudhuij, Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Ghent University, Watersportlaan 2, Ghent 9000, Belgium. E-mail: Ilse.Debourdeaudhuij@UGent.be European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2008) 62, 834–841 & 2008 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved 0954-3007/08 $30.00 www.nature.com/ejcn