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Understanding the older food consumer, present day behaviours and future expectations

journal contribution
posted on 2009-02-01, 00:00 authored by Wendy HunterWendy Hunter, Tony WorsleyTony Worsley
The main aim of this study was to determine whether Baby boomers know how they would manage to maintain a healthy diet on lower incomes in retirement. A cross-sectional survey was conducted at two shopping centres in Melbourne, Australia with 352 respondents. Contingency table analyses (using chi-square tests) were used to examine differences in present and future cooking habits between gender, age and socio-economic groups as well as anticipated changes to food shopping if they had less money in the future. The findings suggest that the most common food preparation behaviours were making meals from scratch ingredients (80% of participants) or using a combination of fresh and convenience foods (55% of participants), with socio-economic and demographic factors significantly influencing specific behaviours. Nearly 50% responded that if they had reduced income they would make a change to their food shopping habits. The most common changes were to the types of food purchased and seeking out special offers or cheaper brands. The results suggest that when faced with a lower standard of living, people will make changes to their food consumption habits. The challenge facing health promotion practitioners, is to ensure that these changes are well informed, leading to healthy options.

History

Journal

Appetite

Volume

52

Issue

1

Pagination

147 - 154

Publisher

Academic Press

Location

London, England

ISSN

0195-6663

eISSN

1095-8304

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2008, Elsevier Ltd

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