Citizens' views of the food knowledge
required by food consumers
in five countries in the Asia Pacific Region
Anthony Worsley1, Wei Wang1, Melissa Burton1, Quynh Pham1,
Stacey Ridley1, Judhiastuty Februhartanty2, Rani Sarmugam3
1Deakin
University, Melbourne, Australia
2SEAMEO-REFCON, University Of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
3Health Promotion Board, Singapore
BACKGROUND
• Major economic and health changes are taking place in the Asia
Pacific Region.
• These affect people’s diets (e.g. Moodie et al. 2013, Popkin et al. 2012)
• Rising middle class in many countries; successful policies requires
civic engagement (Laverack 2010, Lobstein et al. 2013).
• Little is known about food consumers’ views and experiences in
these countries.
• In particular, new school food curricular are required to equip
young people to cope with consumerist societies.
BACKGROUND & AIMS
General aims of the Families and Food survey
To describe:
1
Household food providers’ food & health behaviours & habits during
the nutrition transition.
2
Their views of food marketing, causes and prevention of obesity,
retailing & consumption, and food policies.
Specific objective
To examine household food providers’ views of the key food knowledge and
skills required by food consumers.
Our previous work
• Examined ‘experts’ views of the food knowledge and skills required by
school leavers – qualitative study.
• Examined lay people’s views of essential food knowledge and skills in two
national surveys in Australia in 2012 and 2013.
• Part of Taxonomy of food knowledge grant from Australian Research
Council, examined nutritional, safety, environmental and ethical food
knowledge.
• We based our items in the Asia Pacific Families and Food survey on items
derived from this earlier work.
• Most research in the ‘knowledge’ area is linked to ‘nutrition’ or food safety
knowledge; lay persons rarely asked for their opinions.
Some hypotheses
1
Country differences & Nutrition transition: Populations new to ‘global markets’ will be less
aware of dangers to nutrition status. Australia & Singapore further into transition than Vietnam, Indonesia and
Shanghai
Therefore, respondents from A&S will emphasize ‘coping with marketing’ skills more than those from V.I.S.
2
Personal values: Self and communitarian values & conformity-security values
Respondents with stronger Communitarian values (Schwartz POV) will be support a wider range of skills and
knowledge. positively linked to pro health & nutrition views.
3
Demographics: In line with literature,
Older people and women more likely to support a wider range of knowledge and skills
Some Hypotheses
4 Consumerism: Ownership of electronic devices, surrogate
index of ‘consumer society’.
The more electronic devices owned, the less support for
food knowledge and skills.
METHODS
The samples
• Online survey administered by Global Market Insite using their
consumer panels.
• Approx. 800 respondents in each of Indonesia, Melbourne,
Singapore, Shanghai, Vietnam.
• Respondents were household food providers, representative of
main age groups in each country; approximately 40% were men.
• Samples were highly educated (middle class).
METHODS
Procedure
• Respondents contacted by email during December 2013 and
January 2014.
• Strong data quality checks e.g. rotation of items to avoid order effects.
• Points incentives redeemable for small cash amounts.
• Quota (convenience) sampling
METHODS
The Questionnaire
Several sections composed of closed and open ended items (as noted in Background).
For this presentation:
a) Respondents were asked: How important are the following types of food knowledge and skills for
today’s consumers to enable them consume healthy foods?
Then followed a list of 18 items based on our previous work (see Results)
Scale: Five point Not Important to Very important.
a)
•
An open-ended question: In your own words, what food related knowledge or skills do you think
everyone needs in order to be active, healthy food consumers?
Respondents wrote as little or as much as they wished.
ratings 4+5 (definitely) reported here
Data analysis
Quantitative data:
Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical
multiple regression, structural equation modeling (ongoing).
Qualitative data:
Content (Wordtag) and basic thematic analyses (WordSift)
RESULTS: Quantitative findings
Food providers’ views of the importance of types of food knowledge and
skills for today’s consumers (% Important, ratings 4+5)
Food providers’ views of the importance of types of food knowledge & skills
Note: Statistically significant country differences on all items, p<0.01)
Note: Statistically significant country differences on all items, p<0.001
Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Associations between the Importance of food
knowledge/skill and the covariates
The importance of food knowledge and skills was linked
Positively to EQUALITY values (beta = 0.31)
Positively to support for HEALTHY FOOD PROMOTION (0.22)
Was higher in Shanghai, Vietnam and Indonesia than in Melbourne (0.19, 0.16, 0.15)
Was higher among women than men 0.078 and older people (0.06)
Positively to TRADITION (0.057) and HEDONISM values (0.4)
Higher among people with a CHILD AGED 13-18 years (0.03)
Negatively to the number of e-ENTERTAINMENT devices (-0.04)
Negatively to support for ALCOHOL marketing (-0.05) and marketing of UNHEALTHY FOODS
(-0.09)
Points to note
• Top of the list: health effects, safety, nutrient composition,
cooking skills, meal planning, regulation.
• Lower priority on system issues: marketing & advertising,
animal welfare, ethics, how food is grown, budgeting skills ,
food processing
Should there be more emphasis on knowledge of the food
system?
Regional differences
Many differences, for example:
Melbournians and Singaporeans lowest on: health effects,
nutrient composition, safety, food supply security, food
processing, environmental impact, animal welfare, ethics.
Is this effect of well regulated food markets and ‘sheltered’
consumers (e.g. food scares)?
Importance of psychographics and regions
• Equality values and support for healthy food promotion
• Regional differences – Melbournians and Singaporeans tend
to be less supportive of food knowledge than Vietnamese ,
Indonesians and Shanghainese.
• Women and older people more supportive of food
knowledge
RESULTS: Qualitative data
These are preliminary data. Full thematic analyses required after
translation of non English speakers’ responses
The following examples refer to comments made by
Melbournians.
TagCrowd used to compute word frequencies and WordSift to
find statements associated with key words.
Frequencies of
words from
TagCrowd
Top words
food (373)
cook (141)
healthy (167)
eat (113)
meals (88)
prepare (73)
basic (50)
‘Food’ examples
How to handle food at all stages.
Understand labels the dangers of eating wrong foods.
To learn more about fast food and soft drinks.
To go back to natural foods.
Eliminate processed foods from their diet.
‘Eat, eating’ examples
Always have something healthy to eat
Just try and eat as much healthy foods as u can
Know what to eat what is good
Eat less unhealthy food and do more exercise
‘Prepare’ examples
What is seasonal and how to prepare it.
Information about food shopping and budgeting
to prepare good home cooked meals
Cooking skills to prepare simple basic healthy meals
How to prepare quick easy meals at home that is quicker
to cook than going to a take away
Cook, Cooking
Cooking skills to prepare simple basic healthy meals.
Cooking classes should be mandatory in schools for
setting a foundation for future.
How to cook healthy and nourishing meals with little
ingredients.
Basic cooking skills are all that are needed to produce a
cheap, healthy meal
‘Sugar’ examples
To be made aware of the effects high salt, sugar, fatty foods
have on the body as opposed to healthy foods.
Water and sugar content of foods.
Food basics know what are you eating how much fat salts and
sugars that are in super market processed foods that we buy.
Basic cooking skills a reminder of portion sizes and how bad
sugary drinks are for us.
Conclusions
• Much agreement about important knowledge for consumers;
similar to traditional home economics curricula.
• Regional differences suggest that people in developing
economies may be more interested in consumer education.
• Psychographics may be more important predictors of desired
food knowledge than demographics.
• Use of open answer questions may be practical and highly
informative in surveys
REFERENCES
International Food Information Council (IFIC) (2013). Food and Health Survey 2013. http://www.foodinfo@ific.org.
Hardus PM, van Vuuren CL, Crawford D and Worsley A (2003). Public perceptions of the causes and prevention of
obesity among primary school children. International Journal of Obesity, 27, 1465–1471. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0802463.
Laverack, G 2010, Influencing public health policy: to what extent can public action define the policy concerns of
government? Zeitschrift für Gesundheitswissenschaften, 18 (1), 21-28.
Lobstein, T, Brinsden, H, Landon, J, Kraak, V, Musicus, A, Macmullan, J (2013). INFORMAS and advocacy for public health
nutrition and obesity prevention. OBESITY Reviews, 14 (Supp. 1), 150-156.
Moodie, R, Stuckler, D, Monteiro, C, Sheron, N, Neal, B, Thamarangsi, T, et al. (2013). Profits and pandemics: prevention
of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries.’ Lancet, 381, (9867), 670-679.
The Team
Dr Wei Wang
Dr Rani Sarmugam
Dr Judhiastuty Februhartanty
Ms Quynh Pham
Ms Melissa Burton
Ms Stacey Ridley
Funding: Australian Research Council (DP1094493) & Deakin
University
THANK YOU!
tonyw@deakin.edu.au
Support for bans and taxes
Self oriented
values
Associated factors
Avoid calories
OzSing
Eat less
Abstract barriers
Total R sq.
= 10.4%
Environmental
barriers
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
Std. Beta
0.2
0.25
Support for Nutrition Promotion
Eat breakfast, protein, shopping list
Total R
sq. = 40%
Associated factors
Fast food, no PA
OzSing vs Others
Avoid calories
Conformity-security values
Other oriented values
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
Std. Beta
0.25
0.3
0.35