According to Hettler and Roscoe, wellbeing is found in six dimensions which are physical, emotional, social, intellectual, occupational and spiritual. Whereas, food, is one of the factors that play an important role in psychological, physical, emotional, and social wellness.
Food-related #wellbeing is defined as a positive psychological, physical, emotional, and social relationship with food at both individual and societal levels. Therefore, its effect is significant in the overall well-being of one individual.
Green choices are highly related to subjective wellbeing which includes health, emotions, and social wellness. Consequently, they are highly advantaged in comparison to conventional food. Moreover, food manufacturers don't only seek healthy foods. They are also looking for nutrition products that improve wellbeing and make customers feel better and satisfied.
Even though consumers express great enthusiastic attitudes towards organic food, their actual buying behaviour falls short to these attitudes. This phenomenon is acknowledged as the intention-behaviour gap in organic food consumption. Some of the reasons for this gap are limited availability, lack of trust, or lack of knowledge.
Diana Ismael and Angelika Ploeger (2020) examined how consumers perceive the effect of organic food consumption and the mainly intention-behaviour gap in organic food consumption (OIBG) on health, emotions, social and other aspects of life, related to their subjective wellbeing.
The study in total consisted of 448 consumers and the consumers’ perception of their subjective wellbeing associated with organic food consumption and OIBG was evaluated using a self-administered survey. Organic food purchase frequency was measured by asking consumers about the percentage of organic food purchases from the whole food purchases. By measuring organic purchase frequency, consumers were categorized into regular buyer (consumers buy more than 50% organic food), irregular buyers (consumers that buy organic and non-organic food equally) and casual buyers (consumers that seldom buy organic food).
Group of casual buyers was the biggest representative group with 65.71% among other groups of consumers. Regular buyers represented approximately one-third of the sample size with 29.32% and the smallest group size in this study was irregular buyers.
“Health” was the most relevant term mentioned by consumers when thinking of the association between organic food and subjective wellbeing. However, consumers stressed on dimensions such as “food characteristics,” including intrinsic attributes such as “sensory attributes,” “nutritional value” and “free of pesticides,” and extrinsic attributes such as “price,” Moreover, consumers agreed on the general positive effect of organic food on their subjective wellbeing.
Consumers believed that the consumption behaviour of organic food affects positively their subjective wellbeing and leads to better physical state, more positive emotions, and better social life. However, the intellectual dimension does not seem to be influenced by organic food consumption.
The “financial concerns” were the first hindrance by consumers to purchase more organic food. Whereas, lack of availability was the second barrier in the list because organic food has little variety or limited choices or closer expiration dates comparing to other types of products.
Source: The Potential Influence of Organic Food Consumption and Intention-Behavior Gap on Consumers’ Subjective Wellbeing.
Diana Ismael and Angelika Ploeger (2020)