INTERGENERATIONAL STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL INFLUENCES AND FOOD CONSUMED AWAY FROM HOME AMONG TABRIZ CITIZENS

Recent decades’ rapid changes such as urbanization and industrialization, which still are ongoing in many societies, especially in developing countries, have affected any aspect of human life and experience. Under these trends, most of traditionally defined standards of human endeavor, including food and diet related behavior, have been changed or challenged, which raising level of out of home and ready food/meals consumption is among those recent and important changes, experienced especially by the younger generations of many societies. Since 1990, out of home food is playing an important role in peoples or households’ dietary experiences. The role was so overwhelming that ready food industry at global level includes around 21 Trillion $ at year 2009. Accordingly, reviewing Iranian households’ expenditure shows that during 2004 to 2012 out of home and ready food expenditure of the household increased more than 4 times. Existing literature indicates that social factors, among others, are derived people towards out of home and ready foods and meals. In this line, McGee et al. (2009) and Pirouznia (2001) found that nutrition literacy and consumption of out of home and ready food are negatively correlated and people with higher levels of nutrition literacy have consumed lower levels of out of home food. In comparison, Paddock (2015) and Wills et al. (2001) have found that people with higher levels of tendency towards distinctiveness are more interested consume higher amounts of luxury food away from home. Bargiota et al. (2013) and Brindal (2010) also found that normative pressure can influence the amount of food consumed away from home. Anderson (2013) and Epter (2009) showed that social relationship and consumption of food away from home are related and people with higher levels of social interations are consuming larger amounts of food away from home. Farazmand et al (2014) and De Rezende et al (2012) observed that SES is positively and significantly correlated with the amount of food consumed away from home. Present study aims at investigating the intergenerational social influences (including; distinctiveness, nutrition literacy, normative pressure, social interation, SES, religiosity, gender and marital status) on the amount of food consumed away from home among Tabriz Citizens. Survey method has been utilized to collect data among all 15 years old and over population of the city which around 409 of them have been driven by the use of multistage stratified sampling technique. Data are gathered by the use of a self-administered questionnaire developed by the researchers and analyzed by the use of SPSS. Descriptive results show that the amount of food consumed away from home are generally higher among the youngest generation (15-25 years), and middle (26-35 years) generation consumed higher amounts of food away from home comparing to oldest (36 years and over) generation. Results of bivariate analyses are indicative of that, distinctiveness (positively), normative pressure (positively), and SES (positively) among youngest generation; distinctiveness (positively), nutrition literacy (negatively), normative pressure (positively), religiosity (negatively), and SES (positively) among middle generation; and normative pressure (positively), religiosity (negatively), SES (positively), and gender (in favor of men) among oldest generation have affected the amount of food consumed away from home, significantly. According to regression analyses results, SES, busy-ness and normative pressure among youngest generation; SES, normative pressure, and distinctiveness among middle generation; and finally SES and gender among oldest generation have been statistically contributing variables to explain the variance in the amount of food consumed away from home. Those mentioned variables could explain around 10.5, 23, and 32.5 percent of the variation in the amount of food consumed away from home among youngest, middle, and oldest generations, respectively. Policy implications are further discussed.

کلیدواژه ها:

Food away from home ، generation ، social influences ، Tabriz