Healthy Intentions and Actual Behaviour In Snack Choice
PLG Weijzen*1,2, GB Dijksterhuis2, C de Graaf1
1Wageningen University, Division of Human Nutrition, The Netherlands; Pascalle.weijzen@wur.nl
2Centre for Innovative Consumer Studies, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Agrotechnology and Food Innovations, The Netherlands
Introduction:
Many people with positive intentions to engage in health behaviours do not succeed in enacting them. The aim of the present study was to verify this discrepancy between intentions and behaviour in snack choice, and to determine factors that might be of influence.
Methods:
Participants: Employees (N=500) of various firms in the Netherlands, recruited in their worksite cafeterias. Products: Eight snacks, 4 of which had been judged as healthy, and 4 of which as unhealthy in a pilot study (N=30).
Design: The dependent measure was the difference in healthiness (healthy vs. unhealthy) between the intended snack choice (predicted choice, one day before consumption) and actual choice (choice for consumption). At both choice tasks, participants indicated their hunger state. Afterwards, participants completed a questionnaire on demographics, health consciousness, dietary restraint, externality, anticipated regret for not choosing a healthy snack, habit of healthy snack use, and pleasantness of the snacks.
Results:
As we are still collecting data, we cannot present the final results yet. However, preliminary results show that approximately half of the participants who intended to choose a healthy snack, actually chose one of the unhealthy snacks. Moreover, a strong healthy snacking habit, a strong health consciousness, a high anticipated regret for not choosing a healthy snack, and a high pleasantness and normal use frequency of the healthy snacks seemed to improve the intention behaviour consistency for choosing a healthy snack.
Discussion:
Individuals tend to predict to want a healthy snack, which provides delayed rewards. For actual consumption, however, many of them switch their choice to an unhealthy snack, which provides immediate rewards. Insight in factors that contribute to this discrepancy is necessary for the development of strategies to help people to enact their healthy snack choice intentions. This is important for weight management.