Marketing Healthy Diets: The Impact of Health Consciousness on Chinese Consumers’ Food Choices

Using the Theory of Perceived Value to Determine the Willingness to Consume Foods from a Healthy Brand: The Role of Health Consciousness

Eating low amounts of healthy foods leads to high rates of diet-related diseases. How can we control and reduce the increase in these diseases? One of the recommendations is to improve nutritional competence, which means greater health consciousness. The objective of the present study is to determine the influence of health consciousness on the dimensions of perceived value and their impact on the willingness to consume foods from a healthy brand. Through a non-experimental, cross-sectional, and explanatory study, the responses of 518 participants (men and women) who confirmed being consumers of the healthy brands of food were analyzed. The study included adults aged from 18 to 58 years recruited using non-probability sampling. Data was collected using a self-report form and statistically analyzed using Smart PLS. The findings support that health awareness positively and significantly influences perceived quality value, perceived financial value, perceived social value, and perceived emotional value; contrary to this, it was detected that the perceived financial value does not influence the willingness to consume foods from healthy brands. This study contributes significantly to health science by showing how the theory of perceived value predicts the intention to consume healthy brands, with health consciousness intervening in this prediction. Therefore, it is concluded that the study population that consumes healthy foods has experienced the positive impact of perceived value and reports that the factors that comprise it influence their intention to consume healthy foods.

Adopting an Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour to Examine Buying Intention and Behaviour of Nutrition-Labelled Menu for Healthy Food Choices in Quick Service Restaurants: Does the Culture of Consumers Really Matter?

This research aims to examine an extended model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to understand the determinants of consumers' intentions to buy and recommend nutrition-labelled menu (NLM) items for making healthy food choices. The research examines the influence of attitude towards behaviour (ATT), subjective norms (SNs), perceived behavioural control (PBC) and health consciousness on consumers' intentions to buy and recommend NLM. The research also examines the role of culture in shaping buying and recommendation intentions of NLM by undertaking a comparative study of the extended model among consumers in two different countries that have enough variation based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, i.e., the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Kingdom (UK). The results of questionnaire surveys analysed with SmartPLS version 4 showed that ATT, SNs and health consciousness significantly predict intentions to buy NLM items among KSA consumers in quick service restaurants (QSRs). However, PBC did not have a significant influence on KSA consumers' intentions to buy NLM items. On the other hand, ATT, PBC and health consciousness significantly predict intentions to buy NLM items among UK consumers in QSRs. Nonetheless, SNs did not have a significant influence on UK consumers' intentions to buy NLM items. The intention to buy NLM significantly predicts the intentions to recommend NLM among consumers in both countries (KSA and UK). The results of a multi-group analysis showed significant differences between the KSA and the UK regarding the influence of both SNs and PBC on consumers' intentions to buy NLMs as well as on their indirect influence on intentions to recommend NLM items. The results value the role of culture in shaping consumers' intentions to buy and to recommend NLM items for healthy food choices, which has numerous implications for international QSRs, policy makers, and academics.

Exploring the mass adoption potential of wearable fitness devices in Malaysia

Objective

The current study explores the formation of an intention to use wearable fitness devices (WFDs) with wearable fitness attributes and health consciousness (HCS). Moreover, the research examines the use of WFDs with the health motivation (HMT) and intention to use WFDs. The study also exposes the moderating effect of HMT between the intention to use WFDs and the use of WFDs.

Methods

Five hundred and twenty-five adults participated in the current study, and data were collected from January 2021 to March 2021 through the online survey of Malaysian respondents. The cross-sectional data was analyzed using the second-generation statistical method of partial least square structural equation modeling.

Results

HCS is insignificantly associated with the intention to use WFDs. Perceived compatibility, perceived product value, perceived usefulness, and perceived technology accuracy significantly influence the intention to use WFDs. HMT significantly impacts the adoption of WFDs; however, the intention to use WFDs negatively but significantly influences the use of WFDs. Lastly, the association between the intention to use WFDs and the adoption of WFDs is significantly moderated by HMT.

Conclusions

Our study findings illuminate the significant impact of technology-level attributes of WFDs on the intention to use WFDs. However, an insignificant impact of HCS on the intention to use WFDs was reported. Our result confirms that HMT plays a significant role in the use of WFDs. Such as the moderating role of HMT is vital to transform the intention to use WFDs into the adoption of WFDs.

The Moderating Role of COVID-19 Perceived Risk between Health Concern and Psychological Well-Being of Active Senior Campers Using PROCESS Macro Model

This study attempts to contribute to improving the life of the elderly by empirically analyzing the factors affecting the psychological well-being of active seniors in the 'With COVID-19' era. To this end, the relationship between psychological well-being, health concern, and perceived risk of COVID-19 was verified for active seniors in Korea who enjoy camping. Two hundred and sixty-four valid questionnaires collected from active senior participants of "The Korea Camping Fair 2022" held in EXCO, Daegu, Korea, from 29 April to 1 May 2022, were analyzed. The main results were as follows. The health and psychological well-being of active seniors were higher than the normal level, and the perceived risk of COVID-19 was lower than the normal level. It was found that the health of active seniors had a positive effect on their psychological well-being. The perceived risk of COVID-19 was found to moderate the effect of health concern on psychological well-being. In conclusion, in order to improve the psychological well-being of active seniors, active leisure activities of the elderly are essential even in the COVID-19 situation, and various measures are needed to increase health. Not only this, but also, importantly, accurate information sharing on COVID-19 should be premised.

Speciation of Selenium in Selenium-Enriched Foods by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Herein, a method was established for the speciation of six selenium species by high performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP-MS/MS). The factors affecting separation were carefully investigated, including ionic strength, pH, and methanol content. Six species of selenium could be completely separated within 20 min, under the mobile phase of 25 mM citric acid in pH = 4.0 containing 2% methanol. The detection limits of selenite (Se(IV)), selenate (Se(VI)), selenomethionine (SeMet), selenocystine (SeCys2), methylselenocysteine (MeSeCys), and selenoethionine (SeEt) were 0.04, 0.02, 0.05, 0.02, 0.03, and 0.15 ng mL−1, respectively. To verify the practicality of this method, the analysis of selenium-enriched foods such as selenium-enriched spring water, selenium-enriched salts, and selenium-enriched tea were conducted, and recovery of 93.7–105% was achieved with RSD < 5%, revealing the high practical utility of the proposed method.

Conceptualizing a Gluten-Free Instant Noodle Prototype Using Environmental Sustainability Aspects: A Cross-National Qualitative Study on Thai and Danish Consumers

Gluten-free food products have been developed to satisfy the needs of consumers with celiac disease. However, there has been little research on the product feature development of sustainable gluten-free instant noodles through a qualitative study to explore the customer insights related to environmental attitude and purchase decision. Using a cross-national comparative study between Thai and Danish consumers, this study aims to (1) identify the target customer segments for each country; (2) explore the target customer segments regarding behaviours, desired outcomes, and pain points; and (3) suggest gluten-free instant noodle product prototypes suitable for each country. With a qualitative interview approach, 60 target customers (30 Thai and 30 Danish) were recruited to participate in this research. In addition, a thematic analysis was undertaken to examine their behaviours, desired outcomes, and pain points toward sustainable gluten-free instant noodle products. The findings revealed that convenience-oriented customers were the target segment of gluten-free instant noodle products in Thailand. This segment primarily focused on convenience as the main reason for consuming instant noodles and had common pain points in terms of taste. In contrast, environment-oriented customers were the target customer segment in Denmark. This segment consisted primarily of young women who eat less meat and shared common pain points such as difficulty accessing more sustainable options. Hence, there is a need to educate customers in Thailand (an emerging economy) and increase their awareness regarding environmental sustainability and consumption.

Examining the Factors That Affect Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Organic Food Products in a Developing Country

The purpose of this article is to investigate the factors that influence consumers’ intention to purchase organic food in Egypt. Given the novelty of organic food marketing in developing countries, much of the factors that influence its consumption are still inadequately explored in the marketing literature. A conceptual model of the factors that impact the consumption of organic food was developed based on the theory of planned behaviour and previous literature in the area of food consumption. To test the conceptual model and to validate the research hypotheses, an online questionnaire was adopted to collect data from 363 consumers in Egypt. The partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used to analyse the data. The findings indicated that purchase intention of organic food is influenced by consumers’ attitudes and environmental concern. However, e-WOM, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and health consciousness did not influence consumers’ purchase intention. Conversely, the results showed that e-WOM had a significant influence on consumers’ attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, health consciousness and environmental concern. This article contributes by presenting the factors that affect organic food purchase intention in Egypt, and it provides some recommendations for marketing organic food in developing countries.