Abstract
This paper applied a self-administered survey to investigate the impact of organic food behavior and the intention-behavior gap in organic food consumption (OIBG) on consumers’ subjective wellbeing including physical, emotional, social and intellectual dimensions. The survey was carried out with 385 consumers. Furthermore, the study conducted a food test to explore the different impacts of organic and conventional food samples on the mental and physical conditions of consumers’ wellbeing applying a psychological questionnaire. The food test took place in a sensory lab with a panel of 63 untrained German consumers. The research findings demonstrated a positive impact of the organic food consumption on consumers’ subjective wellbeing, while no negative impact of OIBG has been perceived. Moreover, during the food test, consumers distinguished no differences between the impact of organic and conventional stimuli on their mental and physical status. Understanding how consumers perceive the impact of organic food consumption on their wellbeing is one important aspect. However, in the interest of narrowing the OIBG, it is more important to understand how consumers perceive the impact of this gap on their daily-life wellbeing.
Highlights
Wellbeing is considered a broad concept that involves a more holistic view of life
Results showed that German consumers identified no significant difference between the impact of organic vs. conventional food stimuli on their subjective wellbeing parameters
The results demonstrated that being affected by the label effect of organic is not necessarily true in all comparisons between organic and conventional food tests
Summary
It is identified to be a multidimensional concept that is based on several interconnected dimensions [1,2] This multidimensional nature of wellbeing has been addressed earlier by Hettler [3] and Roscoe [4], who have classified six interdependent dimensions for wellbeing: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, occupational and spiritual. As food is well-known to have great influence on our health, mood and emotions as well as our satisfaction with life, it is seen to have a strong impact on subjective wellbeing [5,6,7,8,9]. Recent food studies explained that food-related wellbeing is mainly based on four common dimensions represented by the physical, intellectual, emotional and social dimensions, in addition to overall satisfaction with life [2,4,7,8,11,12] Block et al [10] defined food-related well-being as “a positive psychological, physical, emotional, and social relationship with food at both individual and societal levels.” Recent food studies explained that food-related wellbeing is mainly based on four common dimensions represented by the physical, intellectual, emotional and social dimensions, in addition to overall satisfaction with life [2,4,7,8,11,12]
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