Research on Food Behavior in Romania from the Perspective of Supporting Healthy Eating Habits

Abstract

Today’s human society provides to food consumers many options that involve difficult decisions. Disoriented and stressed by contradictory messages of mass media and by the warnings of being as slim as possible, a modern consumer gets confused and shows a tendency towards losing his traditional habits. Still, most experts suggest that the adoption of a healthy food behavior, based on minimally processed natural products, may contribute to the development of a sustainable food system. The study aims to design the food profile of Romanian consumers by presenting the underlying factors of a balanced diet. The conducted marketing study was of quantitative nature, in which, a face-to-face survey was used. The questionnaire was applied to individuals aged over 18 years old, and the tool used for collecting data was the structured questionnaire applied to a sample of 1185 Romanian respondents. In this study, the following methods of analysis were used: factor analysis, cluster analysis, and structural equation modeling. The research results present the main aspects underlying the food products classification, the clustering of Romanian consumers by their interest in healthy diet, and the relationships between specific variables influencing the healthy food habits. These results have shown the need for supporting educational campaigns targeted at Romanian consumers aimed to develop healthy food habits that could create conditions needed to reshape food supply, and implicitly, to contribute to the development of environmental sustainability.

Reshaping the Traditional Pattern of Food Consumption in Romania through the Integration of Sustainable Diet Principles. A Qualitative Study

“…Alongside the increasing prevalence of NCDRDs, the abundance and overconsumption have generated huge amounts of food loss and waste imposing serious environmental, social, and economic consequences [28].…”

“…Because of all dimensions of sustainable diet "healthy" has been considered the most important one [25], much research to date has focused on it [25][26][27][28][29][30]. Whilst the issue of health is crucial for nowadays sustainable food system, food is also implicated in the cultural identity, both individual and collective and expresses cultural ways of being [6,[31][32][33][34][35][36].…”

Reliability and validity of a General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire for adults in a Romanian population

“…Other factors, including social-economic status of the family and traditions, taste preferences, and genetics, are strong drivers that influence individual dietary habits [6][7][8]. Previous research indicated that the food choices of Romanians are largely driven by economic reasons [9].…”

Psycho-Behavioural Segmentation in Food and Nutrition: A Systematic Scoping Review of the Literature

“…Study populations ranged from n = 73 to n = 3085 participants aged between 18 years and 85+ years. The majority of studies included both male and female participants (n = 28) [13,[26][27][28][32][33][34][35][36][37][39][40][41][42][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54], however one had females only [38], and one did not specify sex or gender [43]. The studies included were from a range of countries such as Australia (n = 4) [13,33,47,54], Chile (n = 3) [48][49][50], and Croatia (n = 2) [32,42], and were published in a range of journals from public health, nutrition, and social marketing disciplines.…”