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Many university students have unhealthy dietary intake. The food environment on university campuses is a potentially important contributor to students' diet. This study aimed to describe on-campus food purchasing behaviours; satisfaction with the cost and availability of foods and beverages on-campus; and preferences for the on-campus food environment, in a sample of Australian university students.An online cross-sectional survey of 409 students at the University of Newcastle, Australia was conducted in 2017-2018. The survey assessed on-campus purchasing behaviours (frequency of purchase and expenditure), satisfaction with the cost and availability of foods, preferences for the on-campus food environment, and socio-demographics (eg age, domestic/international student). Results are reported as basic descriptive statistics.The majority of students (94%) purchased food or beverages on-campus, with 59% purchasing at least once per week. Satisfaction with the availability of foods was low (35.8% satisfied with the types of main meals available, and 48.5% for snacks); however, 72.8% were satisfied with types of beverages available. The majority of students were not satisfied with the cost of food and beverages (40%). The top-rated preferences for changes to the on-campus food environment were healthier options, higher quality food, and cheaper food.Overall, the findings demonstrate strong support from students for healthier and cheaper food to be made available on-campus. SO WHAT?: There are two main factors of concern with regard to university food environments; the healthiness of food and beverage options and their cost. These should be key considerations of any future strategies aiming to improve university food environments.

China is currently the largest CO2 emitter in the world and demonstrates one of the highest levels of energy consumption. The sustainable consumption behavior has increased in China, especially in urban cities. Some clear evidence of this includes food purchasing behavior. Recent studies have also suggested that considering full product information transparency, consumers are willing to pay premium prices for products. With this in mind, sustainable consumption must still be facilitated by related policies, regulations, and tools. This study focuses on sustainable consumption behavior in China and collects and analyzes the literature from the last decade (2007–2017) on the topic. In so doing, it highlights new trends and research topics against the background of circular economy development. The method of systematic review is applied. The review is categorized into several main groups: national policies and regulations, the green awareness of consumers, the definition of related concepts, the barriers between sustainable consumption and the circular economy, and the indicators for circular economy assessment in China. Future research directions are discussed. Furthermore, future challenges are addressed from three perspectives: sustainable consumption facilitating the circular economy, “cradle‐to‐cradle” practices, and the link between the European Union and China. This is a fundamental study in the research domain of sustainable consumption behavior. It provides added value that benefits both academic researchers and decision makers. It also sheds light on the further study of sustainable consumption behavior in China from a macroeconomic perspective.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered conceptions of ?normal? globally, including food purchasing and acquisition decisions In this paper, we surveyed a panel of 1,370 U S households four times during the COVID-19 pandemic from mid-March to late April 2020 With this unique panel, we observe changes in food expenditures, shopping behaviors, and food values as the pandemic evolved Our results reveal reductions in food-away-from-home expenditures and increases in online grocery shopping Food values appear to be fairly stable in the early stages of the pandemic;however, decreases in the importance of price and nutrition reveal tradeoffs households make during the pandemic This article is protected by copyright All rights reserved

The advertising of unhealthy food and beverages forms an important component of obesogenic environments. Such marketing to children is a key health determinant because of its impact on dietary preference and food purchasing behaviour. The location of outdoor advertising is important in exploring obesogenic environments and children's neighbourhoods. The aim of this study is to explore issues involved in the use of Google Street View to examine outdoor food and beverage advertising. The implications for using Google Street View in the context of neighbourhood built environment research and grass-roots advocacy are discussed. The study was conducted within walkable distances from 19 primary and intermediate schools in Auckland, New Zealand, where walkable was defined as limited by 800 m road network boundaries, which are equivalent to school buffer boundaries. Google Street View allows for centrality of data collection, coding, and storage. However, challenges exist with the method because 727 (29.4%) of a total of 2,474 outdoor advertisements that were identified were not able to be categorised because images were unclear, not in English, blocked, or at angles where detail cannot be deciphered. Specific to outdoor advertising for food and beverages, the results presented here show that children are exposed to a significantly greater number of unhealthy advertising than other advertising, P=0.001, eta-squared statistic (0.45) indicates a large effect size. Overall, the results show promise for the use of Google Street View in the study of obesogenic environments.

Millenials are the generation everyone is talking about and the generation who loves to talk about themselves. More than just a media buzzword, researchers, marketers, and retailers are interested in how the soon-to-be-largest segment of the population is making food purchasing decisions. This paper uses the difference-in-difference method to determine the causal “millennial effect” on the share of income spent on various food expenditure categories. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey was used to identify how young people’s food expenditures compare to older people’s in 2015 and in 1980. Results indicate significant “millennial effects” that might have policy implications for future health care spending. Millennials have higher demand for cereal, beef, pork, poultry, eggs, and fresh fruit and lower demand for “other” food, and for food away from home relative to what would have been expected from the eating patterns of the young and old 35 years prior.

To maintain wellbeing, independence and nourishment of elderly population, one promising strategy is to provide home care by delivering food using “meals on wheels” (MoW) system. Even when the food is home-delivered, the difficulties encountered by elderlies during the overall eating process can be a limiting factor. Hence, the objective of this self-reported study was to explore the difficulty perception in the entire eating process from opening up the package, reheating, hand manipulation and oral processing of the food to bolus swallowing in 405 elderly consumers from five European countries (Finland, France, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom) with three different levels of dependency (category 1: participants living at home with help needed for food purchasing; category 2: participants living at home who need help for meal preparation or meal delivery; category 3: participants living in nursing homes/sheltered accommodation). Frequencies of responses and cross tabulation test were calculated for the difficulties perceived. Results show that the most difficult package to open was the cap irrespective of country or dependency levels (at P

A majority of purchases that consumers make are classified as repeat purchases. One of the main reasons why consumers make repeat food purchases is the food's taste. Therefore, we examined the importance of including taste testing in nonhypothetical experimental auctions. Specifically, we used two experiments to determine consumers’ willingness to pay for soft drinks labeled with different calorie and sweetener information. In Experiment 1, participants tasted the soft drinks prior to the bidding rounds. In Experiment 2, participants did not taste the soft drinks prior to the bidding rounds. Bidding behavior for the soft drinks was significantly different between Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Results suggest that including taste testing in the design of experimental auctions is important to accurately capture consumers’ willingness to pay for foods that are purchased repeatedly. Results also imply that policies aimed at combating obesity by making the calorie content of foods more visible may not produce desired outcomes.

Although there has been a respectable amount of research on consumers’ opinions about organic food and their purchasing behavior, the college student demographic has not been thoroughly investigated. The university demographic is an important one, as the students are beginning to make their own food purchasing decisions. Previous research indicates that college students have positive attitudes toward organic food, as well as other alternative production practices. The purpose of this study was to determine college students’ knowledge, perceptions, and purchasing habits of organic foods at a southern land-grant university. Results indicated that of the total food goods purchased by students, 62% of students bought 1 to 25% organic food, almost 16% bought 0% organic food, and almost 16% bought 51 to 75% organic food. Additionally, students’ responses suggest that they are most motivated to purchase organic food for their own benefits, vs. to benefit the environment or farmers or workers. No significant difference was found among male and female students’ organic food purchasing habits. Although students are impacted by the behaviors and opinions of their parents and peers, parents played a larger role than peers in impacting college students’ organic food purchasing habits.

Aim The aim of the present study was to explore fast food purchasing behaviours and motivations and to assess whether eating at different quick-service restaurant (QSR) chains affects macronutrient consumption of a fast food eating occasion. Methods A cross-sectional computer-based survey was completed by consumers at a local fair or via an external hyperlink. Consumers were at least 16 years and had purchased items from McDonald's, Hungry Jack's, KFC, Domino's or Red Rooster in Australia within the last 6 months. Custom-written software captured the items consumed by the respondent, contextual data, reason for consumption and demographic information. Results Five hundred twenty-three adolescents and adults (76.6% female; 81.3% Australian born) completed the survey. They reported commonly purchasing takeaway (69.7%) and from McDonald's (35.5%). Consumption was primarily convenience driven but varied by QSR. General linear models indicated that energy consumed (kJ; M ± SE) from fast food items varied significantly between chains, being higher at Hungry Jack's (4383 ± 138) and KFC (4277 ± 154) compared with Domino's Pizza (2725 ± 239) and McDonald's (3263 ± 124). Total saturated fat, sodium and percentage of energy from fat also varied significantly by QSR chain (all P < 0.001). Total energy consumed on one visit was positively associated with frequency of fast food consumption (P = 0.008). No demographic variable consistently associated with nutritional characteristics of the fast food eaten. Conclusions The nutritional implications of fast food consumption are not uniform across different QSR chains. To our knowledge, this is the first study to indicate an association between frequency of fast food consumption and energy intake at a fast food eating occasion.

Added sugar, particularly in carbonated soft drinks (CSDs), represents a considerable proportion of caloric intake in North America. Interventions to decrease the intake of added sugar have been proposed, but monitoring their effectiveness can be difficult due to the costs and limitations of dietary surveys. We developed, assessed the accuracy of, and took an initial step toward validating an indicator of neighborhood-level purchases of CSDs using automatically captured store scanner data in Montreal, Canada, between 2008 and 2010 and census data describing neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics. Our indicator predicted total monthly neighborhood sales based on historical sales and promotions and characteristics of the stores and neighborhoods. The prediction error for monthly sales in sampled stores was low (2.2%), and we demonstrated a negative association between predicted total sales and median personal income. For each $10,000 decrease in median personal income, we observed a fivefold increase in predicted monthly sales of CSDs. This indicator can be used by public health agencies to implement automated systems for neighborhood-level monitoring of an important upstream determinant of health. Future refinement of this indicator is possible to account for factors such as store catchment areas and to incorporate nutritional information about products.

Aim The aims of this study were to examine total food expenditure and the types of food purchased in food-insecure households with children, to compare these by severity of food insecurity (moderate or low food security) and furthermore to estimate food expenditure as a percentage of net household income. Methods The study was conducted in Dunedin, New Zealand (NZ) (from June 2009 to May 2010), and included low-income (≤NZ$45 000/year), food-insecure households with children (n = 165). The main food preparer was interviewed to determine the food security status of the household. Households collected food shopping receipts and recorded all food that was purchased for four weeks. Results Households reported spending NZ$132/week on food. The greatest percentage of food dollars was allocated to the food group meat, fish and poultry (14.5%), followed by fruit and vegetables (13.7%). Households with low food security reported spending less money compared to households with moderate food security on total food and the food groups fruit and vegetables and cereals but not on the food groups meat, fish and poultry or dairy and eggs (excluding milk). Food expenditure was estimated to be more than 30% of net income for households with an annual income of less than NZ$35 000. Conclusions For the core foods fruit, vegetables and cereals, reported food spending was less for households with low food security compared to households with moderate food security. This is likely to contribute to poor health in addition to being an undesirable and stressful condition for a household.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of nutrition education on consumers’ knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward trans fatty acids in foods. The research was conducted utilizing a Solomon four-group design with 47 participants. Two measures were developed to evaluate the impact of the nutrition education session: (i) a questionnaire adapted from International Food Information Council materials and (ii) review of grocery store receipts for trans fat-containing products. A comparison of pretest and posttest results for participants in the experimental group showed significant improvement on these items: an increase in “always” looking at the ingredient list when purchasing packaged food, considering trans fat when purchasing foods, selecting the healthier choice based on the ingredient list, and feeling more knowledgeable and more confident. Also, examination of grocery receipts after 2 weeks showed that participants purchased a lower proportion of foods containing trans fatty acids. These results suggest that nutrition education sessions can promote an improvement in consumer understanding and food purchasing patterns.

BACKGROUND: The global market for organic food has developed significantly in the past decade. The organic food industry in China is export oriented, with production growing rapidly, although the domestic market remains relatively small. This paper surveys 432 consumers from three cities in China, consequently establishing a logit model to analyse the main factors affecting consumers' choice for organic food. RESULTS: The result indicates that Chinese consumers' intent to purchase organic food is strongly affected by factors such as income, degree of trust in organic food, degree of acceptance of organic food price, and consumers' concern on self-health. This intent is only slightly affected by factors such as consumers' age, education level and concern about environmental protection. CONCLUSION: Based on the results, the following measures are recommended: reduce the cost of organic food through multiple channels to cut down the market price; establish and perfect the supervision system of organic food; and promote organic food through various channels. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry

Attempts to improve the nutritional status of Aboriginal people through nutritional education programs should be informed by an understanding of contemporary patterns of food procurement, preparation and distribution. This paper describes the results of a survey of food-purchasing behaviour in a central-Australian Aboriginal community. Every transaction occurring in each food outlet in the community over a two-week period was recorded and the data analysed. The results show that women play a much greater role than men in food purchasing, that there is a significant recourse to takeaway foods, that there is a cycle of expenditure determined by distribution of pension and Community Development Employment Project cheques, and that children have sufficient disposable income to be able to provision themselves from the food outlets, so that much of their food consumption is not determined by adult members of their family.

Objective: To describe the development and reproducibility of a self-report instrument, for use with children in years 4–6, to identify sources of food eaten during the day, and type and frequency of food purchases at school. Design: Tool development stages included formulation of content and format, expert review, piloting and a test–retest study. Subjects/setting: The pilot study included school students (n = 20) in years 4 and 5 (seven girls, mean age 9.7 ± 0.7 years) attending an Australian public primary school. The test–retest study was performed in a large metropolitan public primary school (n = 245 children, 52% female, mean age 10.7 ± 0.91 years) including children from years 4 (n = 88), 5 (n = 84) and 6 (n = 73). Statistical analysis: A Kappa statistic was used to assess level of agreement between the two time periods separated by 1 week. The results were analysed using SAS version 8.2 with each question compared at time 1 and 2. Results: The mean kappa was 0.529 using pairings from 17 questions. Values ranged from 0.18 to 0.71 (CI 0.46–0.60). Conclusions and applications: The School Eating Habits and Lifestyle Survey has been developed and pilot-tested in primary school-aged children and shown to have moderate stability over time. The results show that each phase of development, particularly those spent in consultation and testing, led to progressive improvement of this instrument. This process improved the quality of information produced and gave insights to self-report of dietary intake and behaviours among children.

Through direct marketing of their products, many farmers are forming a stronger connection with their customers and obtaining premium prices for those products. Potential direct marketing customers for food producers are local restaurants and institutional foodservice operations. Benefits and challenges do exist for both foodservice operators and food producers interested in exploring this method of purchasing. A project tracking local food purchasing by nine Iowa restaurants and institutions is described.

Summary Background: The Heartbeat Award scheme (HBA) was initiated in Leicestershire in 1990. An evaluation of compliance of HBA premises with nutrition criteria and an assessment of the impact of the scheme on food purchasing trends has not been previously reported. Method: Twenty-three caterers (12 workplaces and 11 public eating places) responsible for implementing the scheme were interviewed to establish the extent to which premises continued to comply with nutrition criteria; whether healthy food choices were being marketed after receiving the HBA; and caterers assessment of food purchasing trends. Data were collected during face-to-face interviews using a questionnaire and checklist. Results: All workplaces complied with 11 of the 34 nutrition criteria, and all public eating places complied with 22 of the 34 nutrition criteria. A quarter of caterers reported not providing one-third of all menu sections as healthy choices. Three-quarters of establishments used a symbol to highlight healthy food choices. This was the only form of promotion in most cases. At least a quarter of premises reported an increase in sales of some healthier food items. Even so, the uptake of less healthy choices remained the same in most premises. Conclusion: The lack of compliance locally with so many nutrition criteria is a major concern. This raises the question of whether scarce dietetic resources are being used appropriately without a system for monitoring.

To investigate if acute sleep deprivation affects food purchasing choices in a mock supermarket.On the morning after one night of total sleep deprivation (TSD) or after one night of sleep, 14 normal-weight men were given a fixed budget (300 SEK-approximately 50 USD). They were instructed to purchase as much as they could out of a possible 40 items, including 20 high-caloric foods (2 kcal/g) and 20 low-caloric foods (2 kcal/g). The prices of the high-caloric foods were then varied (75%, 100% (reference price), and 125%) to determine if TSD affects the flexibility of food purchasing. Before the task, participants received a standardized breakfast, thereby minimizing the potential confound produced by hunger. In addition, morning plasma concentrations of the orexigenic hormone ghrelin were measured under fasting conditions.Independent of both type of food offered and price condition, sleep-deprived men purchased significantly more calories (+9%) and grams (+18%) of food than they did after one night of sleep (both P 0.05). Morning plasma ghrelin concentrations were also higher after TSD (P 0.05). However, this increase did not correlate with the effects of TSD on food purchasing.This experiment demonstrates that acute sleep loss alters food purchasing behavior in men.

One hundred and twenty subjects were asked to state the frequency with which they consumed 44 foods and drinks on three separate occasions; before marriage, after five months of marriage, and again after two and a half years of marriage. A method was devised to assess change in eating patterns, based on convergence or divergence of reported frequency of consumption of these 44 food items. Eating habits became more similar with marriage, although initial convergence tended to relax with time. Husbands were more likely to make convergent changes than wives as marriage lengthened, presumably because wives made more decisions about food purchasing. There was no consistent pattern to which foods wives and husbands made convergent changes. However, wives as a group tended to consume more of their preferred foods than their husbands did; and husbands as a group tended to eat their preferred foods more frequently. Nutrition education for this relatively neglected group should be directed predominantly towards wives.

Unhealthy eating contributes to increased prevalence of preventable diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many forms of cancer. In the United Kingdom (UK) alone it is estimated that 70,000 premature deaths could be avoided each year if eating behaviour matched nutritional guidelines (Cabinet Office 2008). These diseases pose a substantial threat to the health of populations and there is increasing concern about the challenges that they will pose to the effective and economic provision of health services (Finkelstein 2003; Foresight 2007). However, changing behaviour to reverse rises in potentially preventable disease is difficult. While many people want to engage in behaviours that promote good health, including healthy eating, people find it difficult to implement and maintain such behaviours (Ogden 2007; Sutton 1998). Eating healthily is made more difficult by an environment in which a great variety of tempting, convenient and cheap ready-to-eat foods are readily available and made highly salient through marketing. These foods are often energy dense (that is high in calories relative to their volume) and highly processed. They are packaged and marketed in ways that fail to help consumers understand their nutritional content.

Objectives of this study were to ascertain nutrition attitudes, knowledge, and food pur chasing practices of preschoolers' parents and to compare attitudes, practices, and knowledge of parents by type of child care program, sex, age, education level, family size, residence, occupation, nutrition training, and money spent on food eaten at home and away from home. The target population was parents, both mothers and fathers, who had preschool children attending a licensed day care center or day care home. Data were analyzed from 1,769 questionnaires. Cronbach's alpha reliabilities were computed for knowledge, attitudes, and practices, and a total score for each parent was calculated for each scale. Pearson's product-moment correlation was used to determine relation ships among the variables and knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Differences in atti tudes, knowledge, and practices were determined by one-way analysis of variance. Findings indicated that nutrition attitudes were more highly related to food purchasing practices than was nutrition knowledge to food purchasing practices. Education level was the predominant variable influencing nutrition knowledge, and nutrition attitude was the primary variable influencing food purchasing practices.

MARKET RESEARCH ANALYSTS have studied consumer buying motives and habits with respect to innumerable product lines. Very few researchers have made use of social organization variables as correlates of specific buying motives and habits. The purpose of the present paper is to examine social organization determinants of consumer-buying motives in food purchasing.' Following the procedure of other market researchers, an attempt was made to ascertain consumers' patronage motives in buying groceries.2 Each consumer interviewed in the study was asked: "Why do you buy your groceries at this store?" (Store previously indicated and from which respondent purchased majority of groceries). The reasons given were ranked by respondents 1, 2, 3. A value of 3 was assigned to the first reason, 2 for the second and 1 for the third. The results given in Table 1 indicate that consumers patronize particular stores for specific reasons. In order to compare buying motives with