Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.
J Hum Nutr Diet. 2010 Oct;23(5):480-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-277X.2010.01045.x.
Despite scientific evidence on the positive effects of seafood consumption on human health, the consumption of fish remains below the recommended intake levels for the majority of Europeans. The present study aimed to explore cultural differences in potential determinants of fish consumption: consumers' knowledge and health-related beliefs, as well as the relationship between those variables, socio-demographics and fish consumption frequency, using data from five European countries.
A cross-sectional consumer survey was carried out in 2004 with representative household samples from Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Spain. The sample consisted of 4786 respondents, aged 18-84 years, who were responsible for food purchasing and cooking in the household.
European consumers had a very strong belief that eating fish is healthy. Consumers' belief that eating fish is healthy, their interest in healthy eating and objective fish-related nutrition knowledge, positively, but only weakly, influenced fish consumption frequency. Subjective knowledge was found to be a stronger predictor of fish consumption than the previously noted factors. Age and education contributed, both directly and indirectly through knowledge, to explain fish consumption behaviour. However, the path coefficients in the estimated model were relatively low, which indicates that fish consumption frequency was also determined by factors other than health-related beliefs and consumers' knowledge.
The findings of the present study suggest that communication should focus on health-related benefits other than fish consumption alone. Communicating that eating fish is healthy and stressing the health benefits of fish alone, as is still commonly performed (e.g. in generic promotion and other types of public information campaigns) will be insufficient to achieve higher levels of compliance with fish consumption recommendations.
尽管有科学证据表明食用海鲜对人体健康有益，但欧洲大多数人的鱼类摄入量仍低于建议摄入量。本研究旨在探讨文化差异对潜在决定鱼类消费的因素的影响：消费者的知识和与健康相关的信念，以及这些变量与社会人口统计学和鱼类消费频率之间的关系，使用来自五个欧洲国家的数据。
2004 年进行了一项横断面消费者调查，采用比利时、荷兰、丹麦、波兰和西班牙的代表性家庭样本。该样本由 4786 名年龄在 18-84 岁之间的受访者组成，他们负责家庭的食品采购和烹饪。
欧洲消费者非常坚信吃鱼是健康的。消费者认为吃鱼健康、对健康饮食的兴趣以及客观的鱼类营养知识，积极但仅微弱地影响鱼类消费频率。与上述因素相比，主观知识被发现是鱼类消费的更强预测因素。年龄和教育通过知识直接和间接地影响鱼类消费行为。然而，估计模型中的路径系数相对较低，这表明鱼类消费频率还受到健康相关信念和消费者知识以外的因素的影响。
本研究的结果表明，沟通应重点关注健康相关的益处，而不仅仅是鱼类消费本身。仅仅传达吃鱼健康和强调吃鱼的健康益处，就像目前通常所做的那样（例如在一般性宣传和其他类型的公共信息宣传活动中），将不足以实现更高水平的遵守鱼类消费建议。
