Nong Yixin, Zhao Minjuan, Chien Hsiaoping
Fudan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Applied Economic Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan.
Heliyon. 2022 Sep 20;8(9):e10671. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10671. eCollection 2022 Sep.
Although the nutritional and health benefits of buckwheat foods have been widely discussed and evaluated, studies on consumer perceptions of the health benefits of buckwheat functional foods and how these perceived benefits influence their consumption are scarce. On the basis of the theory of planned behavior, this study aimed to explore consumers' purchase intention and behavior toward buckwheat functional foods while assessing the impact of their perceived susceptibility and severity of health concerns on the purchase decisions for such foods. Using data from 1077 participants collected in person from Southwest China, we compared the influencing factors between consumer groups based on whether they were aware of the nutritive and health benefits of buckwheat. The results indicated that, apart from consumers' perceived behavioral control, their perceived susceptibility and perceived severity of three selected common health problems, perceived value and efficacy of buckwheat, and subjective norms were strong predictors of consumers' purchase decisions. Moreover, perceived susceptibility and severity were effective antecedents of the perceived value and efficacy of buckwheat, respectively. Consumers aware of buckwheat's nutritive and health benefits of buckwheat were less affected by perceived efficacy. This study highlights that the higher the susceptibility to the three selected common health problems, the greater the internal and behavioral changes toward the purchase of buckwheat functional foods. These findings reveal factors affecting consumers' healthy eating beliefs, which can be beneficial for both policymakers and marketers in formulating healthy diet policies and strategies in developing countries.
尽管荞麦食品的营养和健康益处已得到广泛讨论和评估,但关于消费者对荞麦功能食品健康益处的认知以及这些认知益处如何影响其消费的研究却很少。基于计划行为理论,本研究旨在探讨消费者对荞麦功能食品的购买意愿和行为,同时评估他们感知到的健康问题易感性和严重性对这类食品购买决策的影响。利用从中国西南部亲自收集的1077名参与者的数据,我们根据消费者是否了解荞麦的营养和健康益处,比较了不同消费群体之间的影响因素。结果表明,除了消费者的感知行为控制外,他们对三种选定常见健康问题的感知易感性和感知严重性、对荞麦的感知价值和功效以及主观规范是消费者购买决策的有力预测因素。此外,感知易感性和严重性分别是荞麦感知价值和功效的有效前因。了解荞麦营养和健康益处的消费者受感知功效的影响较小。本研究强调,对三种选定常见健康问题的易感性越高,购买荞麦功能食品的内在和行为变化就越大。这些发现揭示了影响消费者健康饮食观念的因素,这对发展中国家的政策制定者和营销人员制定健康饮食政策和策略都可能有益。