Study maps barriers to nutritious diets for vulnerable Europeans beyond food prices

A person can have food in their cupboard and still go without the nutrients their body needs. That paradox sits at the center of new research from Italy and Poland, which found that poverty creates a maze of obstacles far more complex than price tags alone.

The European Food Information Council led a study involving 68 people receiving food assistance, along with refugees and asylum seekers, across two cities: Trieste and Olsztyn. Researchers conducted eight focus groups to understand why socioeconomically disadvantaged people struggle to eat diets rich in vitamins and minerals. What emerged was a portrait of interconnected barriers that compound one another—economic, physical, temporal, informational, social, cultural, and organizational all working together to make nutritious eating nearly impossible.

The obstacles were concrete and varied. High food prices competed with other household expenses. Getting to shops required transportation many could not afford or arrange. Cooking and storage facilities were inadequate or absent. Food assistance programs offered limited selections. People worried about quality. The foods provided through charitable channels often clashed with cultural preferences and traditions. Professional nutrition advice was out of reach. And underneath it all, people wanted fresh, minimally processed, locally sourced, culturally familiar foods—but their circumstances forced them to choose between those preferences and what they could actually obtain and prepare.

The barriers did not affect all foods equally. Fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat posed particular challenges across affordability, availability, accessibility, and acceptability. A person might find ways to access some micronutrient sources while remaining blocked from others, creating gaps in their diet that no single intervention could close. The research also revealed geographic differences. In Italy, participants pointed to problems within the charitable food system itself—what was available, how accessible it was, and whether they trusted its quality. They also lacked access to professional guidance about micronutrients. In Poland, the struggle centered on finding affordable, high-quality foods in regular retail settings and making sense of nutrition information.

Refugees and asylum seekers described an additional layer of hardship. Displacement itself created barriers: financial assistance was meager, food assistance limited. Temporary housing often restricted access to cooking facilities or food storage. The foods provided did not match what they were accustomed to eating. Navigating unfamiliar health care systems proved difficult. And the psychological weight of displacement and war compounded everything else.

Dr. Katerina Palascha, the study's lead author, noted that while socioeconomically disadvantaged people face disproportionately high rates of micronutrient deficiency, European research had rarely examined why. The findings suggest that information campaigns—telling people what to eat—will not solve the problem. Instead, policymakers need coordinated, context-sensitive responses across food assistance programs, social protection systems, public health, institutional food provision, and nutrition communication. The barriers are structural, not merely educational. They require structural solutions.

The research, published in the journal Foods, did not measure actual nutrient intake or deficiency status in participants. It identified perceived barriers that increase vulnerability to inadequate nutrition. That distinction matters: the study maps the terrain of difficulty without claiming to have measured its exact toll on individual bodies. But the terrain itself is clear enough. For millions of Europeans living with economic disadvantage, the path from hunger to nourishment is blocked not by a single gate but by a series of them, and opening one does not open the rest.