What should you eat? A survey of south Australian women's food consumption norms.

In a random population survey, 418 South Australian women rated the desirability of consumption of 48 common foods, according to their perceived health relevance. Multidimensional scaling of the women's responses yielded three dimensions which accounted for 87% of total variance. The first two dimensions were related to healthiness (low fat, salt and sugar contents) and traditional-artificial nutrient-reduced foods respectively. Younger women rated healthy foods more highly. The mean ratings also formed a unidimensional scale which had high internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.80). These unidimensional scores were correlated with reported food intakes of a random sample of respondents in the State of Victoria, using mean values for demographic subgroups (r = 0.50). The results suggest that food intake, or alternatively recalls of food intake, may be influenced by such prescriptive norms.