Exploring the relationship among food-related values, food-related lifestyle and food-related behavior as lever for changing dietary habits of food desert residents
TERRENCE THOMAS1*, CIHAT GUNDEN2
*Corresponding author
1. Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Greensboro, USA
2. Department of Agricultural Economics, Ege University, Bornova, Izmir 35100, Turkey
Abstract
The objective of this study is to explore the relationship among food-related values, food- related lifestyle and food-related behavior; to identify the underlying dimensions that summarize and capture the meaning of food-related values; and to segment food desert residents based on their food-related life style. Data were collected from a purposive sample of 44 residents of a food desert in Greensboro, North Carolina via a telephone survey. The results showed that the meaning of food related values was represented by social and basic values in the sample of food desert residents. Considering food related lifestyles, residents were classified into two segments: conscious residents and pleasure seeking residents. The findings support the existence of relationship among values, lifestyles and behaviors of food desert residents
INTRODUCTION
The absence of full service supermarkets that offer a wide variety of affordable healthy food, the popularity of convenience stores that offer mostly unhealthy food choices (1), high levels of poverty and many residents without access to transportation are the defining features of food deserts. Incessant and aggressive advertisement of unhealthy food choices, in this impoverished food environment just makes it more difficult for food desert residents to make healthier food choices. The above defining features of food deserts give support to the widely held belief that food deserts contribute to disparities in diet and adverse diet related health outcomes (2-5). Thus, living in food deserts predisposes residents to deleterious health outcomes (6, 7).
Efforts to improve food desert residents’ diet and shopping behavior must take into account the effects of past conditioning, which is the result of incessant advertisement of unhealthy food and the unhealthy food-environment in which they make their daily choice of food. As previous studies have shown, food-related values and food-related lifestyle are associated with food-related behavior, an ...
