Health Beliefs and Motivating Factors to Buy Bottled Water: A Case Study of the University Students of Bangladesh

Abstract

Majority people of Bangladesh are illiterate and unconscious about their health. They are unable to understand the importance of their health. They even do not know the benefits of health precautions which are primarily concerned with food and drinking water. It is identified from the research that the people have some general and specific beliefs on health benefits related to drinking water. The beliefs are bottled water is purer than tap water, health benefits of bottled water are not substantial bottled water is not properly processed, etc. Therefore, people are hardly enthusiastic to buy and consume bottled water. On the other hand, research shows that there are some motivating factors for buying bottled water. These factors are concerned with health benefits, concerns about tap water, convenience, taste, preference over soft drinks, bottle itself, status symbol, luxury item, media, and advertising aspects. Given these observations in mind, this study concentrates only on the beliefs and motivating factors to buy bottled drinking water. This study is only confined among the university students who are studying at the private universities located in Dhaka city. A total of 399 students were interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analyzing data. For identifying the factors relating to health beliefs and buying decision of bottled water, factor analysis was conducted. Results show that the students give most importance on safety and taste of the bottled water whenever they buy. The other factors include media exposure and reputation of the bottled water, chemical smell, hygienic, concerns about tap water, use as luxury item or status symbol, advertising by the producer, shape of the bottle (small or big),and convenience or readily availability of the water. This study suggests that the producers of bottled water should give importance on the health and hygiene aspects and promotional factors for promoting their sales in Bangladesh.