From the places people go when they eat out to the edibles they bring home, food-purchase choices are based on income, perceived health benefit and cost.
However, race and gender also play a role, according a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition online by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Major influences also include reliance on fast food, food advertising and food pricing, as well as taste, palatability and convenience. Access to good food choices played a major role in participants? healthy food choices, said Dr. Youfa Wang, co-author and assistant professor at Bloomberg.
“Considering the growing obesity crisis, it is important to make healthy foods accessible to poor segments of the population and to empower them to eat a healthy diet by lowering the price of healthy foods and enhancing tailored nutrition education,” he said.
The Hopkins team studied 4,356 U.S. adults ages 20 to 65 based on two U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys. They examined the amount of energy, energy density, total fat and saturated fat in foods consumed by participants, and considered the quantity of fruits and vegetables, fiber, calcium and dairy as well as the overall quality of people?s diets.
Income constraints led to poorer-quality diets, they found.
Lower-income blacks in particular saw food price as more important than whites with the same income level. However, poor whites ate more fat and saturated fat. Blacks in the study showed no association between income level and fat intake.
Among all participants, the perceived barrier of food price appears to lead to more salty foods while reducing fiber. Those who understood the benefits of better eating generally ate less fat, and more fiber, fruits and vegetables. Those gains were higher among men than women.
“Programs that promote positive attitudes towards the benefits of healthy diets can improve diet quality for both genders and all ethnicities,” Wang said.
Income alone does not predict a good diet, said May Beydoun, co-author of the study.
“People?s diets are affected by many factors,” Beydoun said in a statement. “A large proportion of the association between income level and dietary intake could not be explained by the perceived barrier of food price or the perceived benefit of diet quality.”
