Main Factors Underlying Consumers' Food Choice: A First Step for the Understanding of Attitudes Toward “Healthy Eating”

ABSTRACT This research investigates consumers' factors underlying food choice and their attitudes toward healthy eating. The participants completed a questionnaire composed by two parts. The first one was based on the Food Choice Questionnaire where the mean scores and factor analyses pointed to “sensory appeal,”“price” and “convenience” as the most important factors in Spaniards' food choice. The agglomerative hierarchical clustering grouped women and adult people as the most concerned population about health and weight control. Considering the latter factor, the items “is low in calories,”“help me to control my weight” were more associated with “is low in fat” than “Is low in sugar.” The second part of the questionnaire asked about the consumption frequencies of different kind of foods and revealed dairy products as the most consumed ones. Furthermore, foods with specific health-promoting ingredients exhibited low consumption frequency, most likely motivated by the low interest or knowledge about their health benefits. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Knowing the main factors underlying consumers' food choice provides important information for having a better understanding of consumers' interest and attitudes toward healthy eating, as well as their concerns about factors involving purchase decision. Knowledge about perceptions toward healthy foods is useful for researchers, producer, manufacturers and health professionals as a first step to design public health policies and consumer education strategies. In addition, the methodology used in the present study with potential application to any kind of population, establishes relationships between consumers perception and food consumption behavior for Spanish consumers.