Contemporary nutritional attitudes and practices: a factor analysis approach.
The results reported here are based upon a survey of the nutritional attitudes and practices of a sample of adults aged between 18 and 74 years. The scaled responses to two inventories of statements were subjected to a factor analysis in order to assess the extent to which it is possible to identify a set of coherent dimensions which underly the range of "surface" issues which figure consistently in the sociological literature. The results broadly confirm the utility of the inventories, and do suggest the presence of a series of underlying themes, some of which are very much along anticipated lines. However, one theme, that of deference to what might be thought of as "authoritative agencies" within the food system, was less expected, and deserves further attention. Additionally, selected factors were aggregated by summing the scores of their component variables, and correlated with the key independent variables of age, sex and social class, with a view to identifying the social profiles of their adherents. The results obtained were by no means clear cut, with a number of the anticipated features of such profiles being absent. Moreover, where the profiles were as anticipated, the correlations, although statistically significant, were relatively weak. This raised the issue of whether such an outcome was a methodological artefact, or a reflection of the possibility that differences in nutritional attitudes and practices are shaped by a range of lifestyle variables which do not coincide with conventional indicators of social differentiation.
Beardsworth
A
A
Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK.
Haslam
C
C
Keil
T
T
Goode
J
J
Sherratt
E
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D012924:Social Conditions