A six‐country European survey on consumer attitudes to the metabolic syndrome, genetics in nutrition and potential agro‐food technologies: questionnaire design methodology

Summary The prevalence of overweight, obesity and type 2 diabetes is increasing all over Europe. In order to address this major public health problem and to reverse the situation, effective measures are urgently needed. LIPGENE ( http://www.lipgene.tcd.ie ; http://www.nutrition.org.uk ), an EU Sixth Framework Integrated Project (2004–2009), entitled ‘Diet, genomics and the metabolic syndrome: an integrated nutrition, agro‐food, social and economic analysis’, focuses on those strategies. This paper presents the methodology used to develop a questionnaire to provide data on the general population's attitudes towards genetics in nutrition, the metabolic syndrome and potential agro‐food technologies in a geographically representative sample of six European countries within LIPGENE. In total, 5967 subjects aged 15 years and above in six European countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Portugal) completed the survey. Their demographic characteristics are also presented.