Food-Related Lifestyle Analysis and Consumer Behavior

Food-related lifestyle analysis integrates consumers’ attitudes, motivations and habits to explain dietary decisions across diverse contexts. This approach examines dimensions such as health orientation, convenience, sustainability, sensory preferences and social norms. By segmenting populations through attitudinal and behavioural indicators, researchers identify distinct consumer groups—from eco-conscious eaters and culinary experimenters to price-sensitive and habit-driven segments. Central to this analysis are methods for capturing food involvement and restraint, alongside advanced statistical techniques for uncovering latent classes. Insights into consumer behaviour inform food industry strategies, public health initiatives and policy development. Recent shifts driven by global crises, technological advances in data collection and heightened sustainability concerns have underscored the importance of adaptive marketing, tailored nutrition education and supply-chain resilience.

Research from Nature Portfolio

A cross-sectional study translated and validated instruments for measuring individuals’ involvement in food and tendencies towards eating restriction within a Middle Eastern population. The research employed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to establish the construct validity, reliability and measurement invariance of the Food Involvement Inventory and Eating Restriction Questionnaire across gender, age and body mass index groups. Findings confirmed robust multi-factor structures for food involvement and unidimensionality for eating restriction, providing standardised tools for future investigations into behavioural drivers and intervention efficacy.

Food-Related Lifestyle Analysis and Consumer Behavior publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in food-related lifestyle analysis and consumer behavior across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Food-Related Lifestyle (FRL): A multidimensional construct encompassing attitudes, values and practices related to food selection, preparation and consumption.

Food Involvement Inventory (FII): A psychometric scale assessing the extent to which individuals attach importance to food across planning, preparation and enjoyment domains.

Eating Restriction Questionnaire (ERQ): A unidimensional scale measuring the degree of conscious restraint in food intake for weight or health purposes.

Latent Class Cluster Analysis: A statistical method for identifying unobserved subgroups within a population based on response patterns across multiple variables.

Psychometric Validation: The process of confirming the reliability, validity and invariance of measurement instruments across diverse samples.

References

1. Food-related consumer behaviours in times of crisis: Changes in the wake of the Ukraine war, rising prices and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Food Research International (2023).
2. The interplay of food-related lifestyle and eating behavior in Italian women. Frontiers in Nutrition (2024).
3. Evaluation of psychometric properties of the eating restriction questionnaire and food involvement inventory in Iranian adults. Scientific Reports (2023).
4. Effective Segmentation of Organic Food Consumers in Vietnam Using Food-Related Lifestyles. Sustainability (2019).