**3. Measures**

#### *3.1. Fruit and Vegetable Consumption*

Participants were asked the following questions: "*How many servings of fruit do you eat on a typical day?"* and *"How many servings of vegetables do you eat on a typical day?"*. Respondents were shown a card indicating with pictures and in written explanation what was considered a serving of fruit and vegetables, according to the WHO recommendations [7]. One standard serving (portion) included 80 g, translated into different units of cups depending on the type of fruit and vegetable and standard cup measures available in the country. For example, a piece of banana or apple was considered as one serving. Tubers (such as potatoes) were not included. The total number of fruit and vegetables was added up (ranging from 0 to 18), and a categorical variable was created to indicate the level of consumption using tertiles: low (≤3 servings day), medium (4 servings day), and high (≥5 servings day).

## *3.2. Other Covariates*

Socio-demographic information at baseline included age, gender, educational level (no education/primary school, secondary school, and high school/university studies), and current marital status (never married, widowed, separated or divorced, recorded as "not cohabiting", and married or cohabiting with someone, recorded as "cohabiting"). A binary variable (*ever smoked*) was created including those who had never smoked and those who were current smokers or ex-smokers (including smoking tobacco or using smokeless tobacco). Level of physical activity was evaluated with the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire [29], and participants were classified into high, medium, and low levels [30]. Respondents were asked if they had ever consumed alcohol, the number of days, and standard drinks on average. They were classified as lifetime abstainers (never consumed alcohol), occasional drinkers (did not consume alcohol in the last 30 days or in the last 7 days), non-heavy drinkers (did consume alcohol in the last 30 days and in the last 7 days), infrequent heavy drinkers (did consume alcohol 1–2 days per week, with five or more standard drinks in the last 7 days for men and four or more for women), and frequent heavy drinkers (did consume alcohol 3 or more days per week with five or more standard drinks in the last 7 days for men and four or more for women). Due to the low frequency of heavy drinkers in our sample, non-heavy drinkers, infrequent, and frequent heavy-drinkers were merged into the single category of "frequent drinker".

A combined method, consisting of self-reported physician's diagnosis and/or symptom-based algorithms [31], was used to assess the following medical conditions: arthritis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), angina pectoris, stroke, hypertension, and diabetes. For diabetes, only a self-reported diagnosis was considered. The presence of hypertension was based on self-reported diagnosis or presence of systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mmHg measured at the time of the interview [32,33]. The number of chronic conditions (CC) was calculated (none or one, 2, and 3 or more CC). Interviewers measured participants' height and weight using a stadiometer and a routinely calibrated electronic weighing scale, respectively. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated as weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of height (in meters). A BMI of 30 or higher was used as cut-off point for obesity [34].
