Abstract
China is still facing the double challenges of over nutrition and malnutrition. One of the main reasons is the lack of residents’ understanding of the nutritional value of food. Quantified self, as a measure of consumer self-activity, has been used to analyze food consumption behavior recently. Although the research results are increasing, the conclusions are not consistent. What’s more, previous literatures did not consider food consumption behavior based on the theory of information perception and the risk perception theory. In addition to obtaining information through their own human capital for quantitative activities, consumers will also obtain information through social networks. In view of the above understanding, this study uses experimental design and field survey to obtain data, uses Heckman two-step method and PLS path modeling method to analyze the impact of consumers’ quantified self-behavior on their health food consumption, and discusses the moderating role of social networks based on the perspective of complex network. The results show that (1) consumers’ health awareness can promote their choice of quantified self-behavior, (2) consumers’ quantified self-behavior is helpful to promote their purchase intention and purchase scale of healthy food, and (3) social networks play a positive moderating role in consumers’ quantified self-influence on their healthy food consumption. Both emotional networks and instrumental networks have significant moderating effect, but the formal is stronger. This article not only considers the relationship between food consumption behavior and social network but also the enhances literature based on the theory of information perception and the risk perception theory.
Highlights
A state relies on people and people relies on food
Quantified self will identify residents’ self-health level and personality needs, further more intuitively understand self-status [15], judges product effectiveness based on quantitative data information, establish the association between product data indicators and consumers themselves, and realize accurate and rational consumption decision [16]. erefore, we propose Hypotheses 2 and 3
Experimental Operation. e purpose of this experiment is to examine the impact of quantified self on residents’ willingness and scale of healthy food consumption. e subjects were randomly divided into control group (CQG), active quantitative group (AQG), and passive quantitative group (PQG). e control group did not provide any information. e passive quantitative experimental group was offered food information including protein, carbohydrate, calorie, and so on, and provided the minimum nutrients needed by the human body every day. e food composition information of the active quantitative experimental group was hidden, and the subjects could actively view the food composition information or directly select without viewing it
Summary
A state relies on people and people relies on food. With the improvement of living standards and the growth of residents’ income, the total dietary intake of residents in China has shown a gradual improvement trend in the past decade. Is kind of quantified self-behavior is a short-term choice behavior made by consumers based on the food information provided by producers; it has little effect on consumers’ food nutrition concept and health behavior [6, 7]. Many scholars point out that consumers’ quantified selfbehavior has the problem of short-term participation Different conclusions make it necessary to further study the quantified self in food consumption: is the quantified self in food consumption effective for residents’ health? Due to the limitation of cost and the profit-making purpose of food manufacturers, food manufacturers may adopt opportunistic behavior in the disclosure of information on food quality, safety, and nutrition [10] At this time, consumers can only obtain the related information through their own efforts.
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