Abstract
ObjectivesTo determine the relationship between sustainable and healthy food shopping behavior comparing general motivation with the immediate intention to act.MethodWe conducted an online survey of 144 staff at the Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland, using a questionnaire based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Self-Determination Theory to compute the Behavioral Intention score and the Relative Autonomy Index in relation to healthy and sustainable grocery shopping.ResultsThe intention to shop healthy food was higher (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.56) than the intention to shop in a sustainable way. A significant intention-action gap was observed for both healthy (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.97) and sustainable grocery shopping (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.78). While there was a significant correlation (p < 0.001) between the longer-term motivations to act in a healthy and sustainable way, this association was not significant (p = 0.16) for the more short-term Behavioral Intention scores.Conclusion and ImplicationsHealth was identified as a more important driver for dietary behavior compared to sustainability. While longer-term motivation shows a stronger correlation between healthy and sustainable grocery shopping, short-term intentions do not follow this pattern as strongly. A significant intention-action gap exists for both, which is stronger for sustainability than for health.
Highlights
Sustainability and public health are both challenges for current global dietary trends [1], and by proxy food shopping behavior
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) proposes the assessment of three distinct contributors: attitudes (A), subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC), for which we developed questions to assess the strength of the relevant beliefs on a 5-point Likert scale to be aggregated into the Behavioral Intention (BI, see below) scores [24]
We found that the drivers for healthy behavior and the drivers for sustainable behavior are not necessarily the same for a significant proportion of participants, with the main difference being that a lower perceived behavioral control exists with regard to sustainable grocery shopping
Summary
Sustainability and public health are both challenges for current global dietary trends [1], and by proxy food shopping behavior. Both on the international [2] and national levels [e.g., [3]] food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) are developed; most do not consider sustainability explicitly [4] and predominantly focus on health-related recommendations [5] targeting environmental sustainability by means of alignment with healthy dietary patterns [6]. At the same time a shift in consumer behavior [11] is driving changes on the supply side of the food industry with sustainability marketing [12, 13] being increasingly implemented. Canio and Martinelli, [18] found that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for sustainable EU quality label foods, an intention-action gap has been observed
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