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Introduction
STANLEY R. JOHNSON
Eating patterns are important indicators of the nutrition status of the
U.S. population. Nutrition status is in turn associated with a number of
health conditions known to be important determinants of mortality and
morbidity in the population, and it influences the capacity of humans to
perform and their general physical and psychological well-being. For these
reasons, eating patterns and observed changes in eating patterns have broad
implications for food and nutrition policy.
The previous section provided background information on the health
and nutrition status of the U.S. population from two nationwide surveys.
The next section will highlight trends in eating patterns that appear to be
occurring. To create a bridge between those two sections, we will now
explore factors that may be shaping or causing eating patterns and the
observed changes. Increased knowledge of factors that shape eating pat-
terns can contribute to an improved understanding of nutrition status, a
more compile capacity for anticipating trends in eating patterns, and
finally, better education and intervention programs to improve the nutrition
and health status of the U.S. population.
The three presentations that follow are reviews of theories from eco-
nomics, psychology, and consumer behavior on factors that may be shap-
ing eating patterns. The perspectives provided by these papers should
stimulate interest in the study of determinants of eating patterns. Of course,
eating patterns can be influenced by the food supply and the changing
ways that people acquire food. Eating patterns also may change in response
to changes in personal preferences, which are influenced by an array of
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44
WHAT FACTORS SHAPE EATING PAT TERNS?
social, economic, and other conditions. In general, eating patterns are
shaped by ways people react to and process information, their interactions
with others, and culture. Obviously, isolation of the factors that shape
eating patterns of the U.S. population or segments thereof is a highly
complex undertaking. It is an important pursuit, however, because a more
complete understanding of these factors may lead to improvements in
intervention and education programs and to better monitoring of the nu-
trition and health status of the population.
Themes to recognize in the three presentations are concepts of the
individual decision process, the stimuli for these decisions, and the re-
sponses generated from reactions to these stimuli. This simple stimulus-
response framework is useful for achieving a basic understanding of how
each discipline explains individual choice for food consumption in general
and in particular. These different approaches have implications for what
should be measured in analyses of eating patterns and how this information
should be used for analyzing and predicting consumption patterns.
To apply the simple stimulus-response framework, it is useful to un-
derstand the approaches used in the three papers that follow. According
to the model based on economics, individuals receive benefit or satisfaction
from the consumption of food commodities. The basic stimuli in the
economic model are prices and income. The observed response is the
allocation of the food budget or income to different food items. Extensions
of the economic choice theory involve adjustments for factors believed to
influence preferences, the technology for processing purchased foods into
edible forms, time requirements for food preparation, the education levels
of individuals, and investments in food preparation and related equipment.
The decision unit for the economic model is the household, the individual'
or both.
The presentation dealing with psychology focuses on the basic senses
of the individual. Through a number of experiments with humans and
laboratory animals, responses to selected stimuli are observed. These
responses are related to decisions on whether to consume or not consume
particular food items. Extensions of this basic model incorporate factors
conditioning the observed responses to these stimuli from the culture,
associations with other individuals, and other features of the decision
setting. The essentially trial-and-error approach for infants, and to a more
limited extent laboratory animals, is replaced in more complex choice
situations by structures and institutions that make trial and error unnec-
essary. For example, social structures provide information to consumers
about whether food items are harmful or good through Me licensing of
restaurants, labeling of food products, inspection certification of meat
products, and other channels.
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!
INTRODUCTION
45
The consumer behavior approach is one of a number of more pragmatic
and eclectic theories. In this decision model, the individual is described
as an information processor with a memory and a capacity to generalize
on the basis of experience. New information introduced into the system
in which the processor functions can alter the objectives of the processor,
produce different stimuli, or both, thereby yielding responses in the form
of observed choices. This information processor model has been used
widely in marketing and advertising food products.
The three choice models are a subset of those developed for under-
standing human behavior in the social and decision sciences. ~ These sci-
ences are relatively new, and their respective theories are in a seemingly
constant state of evolution. It would be tempting to express impatience
with these theories and, in fact, the disciplines. However, it must be
recognized that the decisions or responses studied are detained by highly
complex configurations of stimuli and, most importantly, that the subjects
of the study are human and' thus, not subject to the high levels of ex-
perimental control applied in physical sciences.
Yet, the approaches represented by these three presentations and others
in the behavioral and decision sciences provide many opportunities for
research and the development of improved policies designed to improve
the health and nutrition status of the population. The three frameworks
suggest various measurements and various ways of processing new and
older data. In general, they have the potential to improve the scientific
basis for public health policy; nutrition education; and intervention pro-
grams that are designed to control the food supply, information on the
food supply, food assistance programs, and the multitude of factors in-
fluencing choices of foods and observed eating patterns.
iIncludes marketing, consumer behavior, public administration, and applications of the social
sciences.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
nutrition status
