London, Jan 17 (IANS) People who keep themselves better informed with the help of the print and electronic media and the internet tend to stick to the healthiest eating pattern in the world.

This is the finding of a study conducted by the ‘Research Laboratories’ at the Fondazione di Ricerca e Cura “Giovanni Paolo II”, Italy, which analyzed data from a sample of more than 1,000 people drawn from an epidemiological study involving 25,000 people in Italy.

“Scientific literature has mainly focused on television viewing, considered a risk factor for health mainly because it represents a measure of physical inactivity,” says Marialaura Bonaccio, study co-author and member of the Research Laboratories.

“In our study, we paid attention to the capacity of people to get informed by using mass media, including the internet and newspapers or magazines. We sought to see whether most informed people had better eating habits than those less exposed to information,” adds Bonaccio.

“Results have shown that people most exposed to information delivered by any mass media source, reported higher adherence to the Mediterranean-like eating patterns, said Americo Bonanni, head of the Science communication unit of the Research Laboratories.

“The latter is considered to be the most effective eating model for reducing the risk of chronic and neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, people who were more informed, reported higher consumption of some key foods of the Mediterranean diet pyramid, such as fruits and fresh fish, and a lower consumption of less healthy food such as animal fats,” concludes Bonanni.