Global: Do consumers care about counting calories?

People tend to consider several factors when choosing what they eat and drink. A recent YouGov study, for example, reveals that more than a quarter (27%) of US and UK consumers are thinking about sugar content in the grocery items they buy.

Many people around the world are also considering calorie information and counting the calories of what they eat. But while data from across 43 markets indicates that 27% of global consumers agree they tend to count the calories of what they’re consuming, a bigger proportion (42%) disagree with the tendency to tot up the calories.

Looking at the data on a regional level, consumers in MENA (37%) and APAC (27%) are significantly more likely than all global consumers to say they count calories. In MENA, consumers from Saudi Arabia (42%), Morocco (30%) and the UAE (39%) show the highest propensity for counting calories. Consumers in India (42%) and Vietnam (35%) are the most likely to be counting calories among APAC markets.

In the Americas, a third (32%) of all US consumers say they count calories, followed by roughly a fifth of consumers in Mexico (22%) and Canada (19%).

Consumers in Europe (20%) are the least likely to say they count calories. Within the continent, consumers in Great Britain (25%), Poland (25%) and Italy (24%) are among the most likely to say they tend to count calories while those in Slovakia (11%), Hungary (12%) and the Netherlands (13%) are among the least likely to agree.

Methodology

YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 43 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.

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