University of California, Berkeley, Department of Sociology, Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States.
Soc Sci Med. 2020 Mar;248:112823. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112823. Epub 2020 Jan 31.
Debates about whether a healthy diet is affordable often overlook how low-income consumers themselves evaluate food cost. This question is relevant to explaining food choices and measuring food prices. Drawing on interviews with 49 low-income primary caregivers and grocery-shopping observations with 34 of these interviewees, I find that respondents judge food cost in two ways: 1) absolute judgments, or assessments of whether a food covers a family's needs with scarce resources and 2) relative judgments, or interpretations of price relative to another food that frames an item as affordable or pricey by contrast. Absolute judgments reflect actual expenditures, including not just the sticker price, but also four underappreciated monetary costs. These underappreciated costs stem from food waste; packages containing more than is needed; food that is consumed too quickly; and unsatiating foods. When monetary costs go unmeasured and when consumers interpret prices in relative terms, researchers' views of food cost diverge from the experiences of low-income people. Divergent views have two results: food-cost estimates overstate the affordability of a healthy diet and observers may misconstrue purchases as financially imprudent. These findings can inform policy, programming, and public discourse.
关于健康饮食是否负担得起的争论往往忽略了低收入消费者自身如何评估食品成本。这个问题对于解释食物选择和衡量食品价格很重要。本研究通过对 49 名低收入主要照顾者进行访谈，并对其中 34 名受访者进行了购物观察，发现受访者以两种方式判断食品成本：1）绝对判断，即评估一种食品是否可以用稀缺资源满足家庭的需求；2）相对判断，即根据另一种食品的价格来判断一种食品的价格是否可承受或昂贵。绝对判断反映了实际支出，不仅包括标价，还包括四个被低估的货币成本。这些被低估的成本源于食物浪费；包装中包含的超出所需的部分；消耗过快的食物；以及不能满足需求的食物。当货币成本未被计量，且消费者以相对的方式来解释价格时，研究人员对食品成本的看法与低收入人群的实际体验就会出现分歧。观点的分歧有两个结果：对健康饮食的可负担性的估计过高，以及观察人士可能错误地将购买行为视为经济上不明智的行为。这些发现可以为政策、项目和公共话语提供信息。
