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The purpose of this study is threefold: firstly, to compare Pakistani and French consumers’ perceptions of well-being; secondly, to investigate how consumers in both countries relate to food; and thirdly, to assess whether they associate food with well-being.

Thirty participants (15 French and 15 Pakistani) between the ages of 24 and 35 were interviewed, using convenience and snow bowling sampling. Data triangulation was performed by combining three qualitative techniques, word association, photo-elicitation-based interviewing and open-ended questions to explore consumer perceptions of well-being, food and food well-being.

The study’s findings suggest that well-being is a broad concept in which food is an ingredient. Food and well-being share common elements, and food well-being can be defined as an individual’s psychological, physical, social and societal relationship with food ascribed by affordability and food literacy.

Pleasure, sharing and respect emerged as dimensions of food well-being that can be applied to transfigure consumer behaviour and reduce over-consumption, food waste and hunger. The dimensions of well-being and food were explored for both countries to understand their cultural nuances and determine the influence of food on well-being. This comparative analysis will help researchers understand consumers’ preferences for food in various aspects from two regions. This study can potentially contribute to scale development in food and well-being, which can help researchers measure the effects of food and well-being in different sectors of the economy, particularly in health care. The most aspiring aspect of the current research is the insights unveiled during interactions with research participants, which will help develop consumer baseline feelings.

To generate the measurement instrument seven steps were implemented. A total of 819 questionnaires were collected in Yunnan Province, China, where it has long tradition of eating insects.

This study aims to explore the influences of the multidimensional benefits of consuming insect-based food on its consequences. Food neophilia and hedonic motivation are used as moderating variables.

Health, nutritional value, taste and cultural domains effectively explained consumers’ attitudes toward insect-based food, food consumption value, satisfaction, subjective well-being, loyalty to the restaurant and community attachment. Food neophilia and hedonic motivation partially moderated the relationships between the proposed constructs.

This study provides a conceptual model for exploring insect-based food consumption experiences and offers a useful guideline for developing and designing marketing strategies for stakeholders in the food and restaurant industry.

This is one of the few studies examining the benefits of consuming insect-based food from the perspective of consumers.

This exploratory study aims to integrate both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the influence of contemporary university dining attributes and practices on student patronage.

First, a review of the extant literature on-campus dining in universities was conducted. Second, innovative practices of on-campus dining facilities of a large public university were identified. Finally, student perceptions of those practices were examined using a mixed method approach.

The review of literature uncovered 49 articles across 35 years on key topics such as food waste, healthy eating, and service evaluation. From site tours and interviews with related personnel, 40 innovative on-campus dining practices were identified.

Importance ratings revealed cleanliness of the environment, fresh fruit and vegetables, and digitally enabled ordering, as the top three highest rated practices. Factor analysis unveiled six factors that students find important: food diversity, good standards, innovativeness, quick options, menu variety, and fish and seafood. The thematic analysis further revealed four overarching themes (convenience, familiarity, food offerings, and value) and 13 subthemes which complemented the quantitative results.

In addition to shedding post-pandemic light on students’ dining needs, it highlights the paucity of theory used to support extant studies and suggests a novel theoretical underpinning.

Apples have always been considered a healthy product able to provide curative properties to consumers. In Italy, there is a long tradition of apple consumption and production both as a fresh product and as processed food. However, as with many other products, the consumption of fruits and vegetables and, more specifically apples, has been drastically affected by the first lockdown in 2020. In this project, the authors investigate whether the change in consumption habits had long-lasting consequences beyond 2020 and what are the main eating motivations, food-related behavior and socio-demographic affecting the consumption of fruits and vegetables after the pandemic.

The authors ran two online surveys with 1,000 Italian consumers across a year (from October 2021 to December 2022). In the study, participants answered questions about their consumption habits and their eating motives. Out of 1,000 consumers, the authors included in the final analysis only the participants who answered both surveys, leaving a final sample of 651 consumers.

The results show that participants have allocated more budget to fruit and vegetables after the lockdown than before it. Moreover, consumers reported an average increase in the consumption of apples. However, the increase was more pronounced for people aged between 30 and 50 years old and identified as female. After showing the difference across time, a cluster analysis identified three main segments that differ in their eating motives, place of purchase and area of residence.

Overall, the results contribute to a better understanding of how the global pandemic is still affecting people's daily life. Moreover, the findings can be used to guide the marketing and communication strategies of companies in the food sector.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates changes in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and, more specifically, apples, in Italy more than one year after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the study proposes a classification of consumers based on their habits in a time frame during which the COVID-19 wave was at its bottom which is not currently present in the literature.

This study aims to increase knowledge of the ability of nutrition labels to guide consumer choices in real-life environments.

Food consumption and plate waste data were collected from two self-service restaurants (SSR) with different customer groups over six observation days: three control and three intervention (with nutrition labelling) periods. Study Group 1 consisted of vocational school students, mostly late adolescents (N = 1,710), and Group 2 consisted of spa hotel customers, mostly elderly (N = 1,807). In the experimental restaurants, the same food was served to the buffets during the control and intervention periods.

The nutrition label in the lunch buffet guides customers to eat fewer main foods and salads and to select healthier choices. Increased consumption of taste enhancers (salt and ketchup) was observed in the study restaurants after nutritional labelling. Nutrition labelling was associated with a reduction in plate waste among the elderly, whereas the opposite was observed among adolescents.

The results provide public policymakers and marketers with a better understanding of the effects of nutrition labelling on consumer behaviour. Future studies should further evaluate the effects of nutrition labelling on the overall quality of customer diets and the complex environmental, social, and psychological factors affecting food choices and plate waste accumulation in various study groups.

Escalation in the number of online food ordering platforms, along with extensive junk food marketing, lucrative offers and discounts, innovation in food flavors, and doorstep delivery of food, have triggered the consumption of high-calorie and unhealthy food products which pose serious threats to the health and future well-being of individuals by making them more obese. To date, several public policy frameworks have been developed to confront obesity; however, their efficacy seems debatable. Directionally, the objective of this study is to highlight the potential influence of “digital nudging” which aims at steering individuals in desired directions, at the same time delimiting their freedom of choice. The study also establishes the effectiveness of digital nudges promoting a healthy lifestyle by steering individuals toward healthier food choices. The author strongly believes that this conceptual perusal will offer immense inputs to healthy food marketers and researchers alike in addressing the matters of obesity. Addressing the menace of obesity calls for joint efforts of the government, the public, researchers, and more specifically food product manufacturers/marketers who should incorporate healthier food options into their portfolios. E-tailers are also urged to adopt such practices in virtual markets and promote healthier food options to effectively tackle obesity.

This study aims to examine how veganism is “seen” by young adult non-vegan consumers and how prevailing attitudes reinforce or challenge stigmas around veganism.

Photovoice methodology was used to explore young non-vegan consumers’ attitudes and beliefs towards veganism. Data was collected from students studying advertising at a major university in Australia, who produced images and narratives reflective of their own attitudes towards veganism. Polytextual thematic analysis of the resulting visual data was then undertaken to reveal the dominant themes underpinning participants’ attitudes. Participant narratives were then reviewed to confirm whether the ascribed meaning aligned with participants’ intended meaning.

Participant images were reflective of first, how they saw their world and their place within it, which showed the interplay and interconnectedness between humans, animals and nature, and second, how they saw vegans within this world, with both positive and negative attitudes expressed. Interestingly, vegans were simultaneously admired and condemned. By situating these attitudes along a spectrum of moral evaluation, bounded by stigmatisation and moral legitimacy, participants saw vegans as being either Radicals, Pretenders, Virtuous or Pragmatists. For veganism to become more widely accepted by non-vegans, there is an important role to be played by each vegan type.

This study offers a more nuanced understanding of how and why dissociative groups, such as vegans, become stigmatised, which has implications for messaging and marketing practices around veganism and associated products/services. Future research could use a similar methodology to understand why other minority groups in society are stereotyped and stigmatised, which has broader social implications.

The current work aims to present a review of academic literature that systematizes the body of knowledge related to marketing and consumer behavior in order to identify the most effective variables that encourage the consumer towards a proper and better lifestyle, accordingly the paradigm of management, marketing and technology efforts to promote a “better” society preventing obesity.

A literature review was carried out to examine the studies of marketing and consumer behavior published in international peer-reviewed journals over the last twenty-three years (2000–2023). Our review finally considered a total amount of 46 articles.

Findings elucidate three overarching themes and associated sub-hemes, encompassing: (1) Product design for obesity prevention, including aspects such as labeling, nomenclature, packaging and assortment; (2) Technology-supported preventive measures, involving mobile applications, self-monitoring, short message services and digital therapeutics; and (3) Marketing and communication strategies, incorporating social advertising, nudge, social influence and initiatives targeting childhood obesity prevention. Furthermore, a comprehensive research agenda is presented, delineating potential avenues for future investigations predicated on the utility of the results in fostering subsequent endeavors within the realms of: efficacy and effectiveness studies; personalization and tailoring; behavioral change techniques and gamification; user experience and acceptance; cost-effectiveness and implementation; as well as ethical and privacy concerns.

Main limitations are related to the characteristics of the analyzed literature, resulting in only English journal articles, book chapter and so on. Thus, other relevant contributions in different languages discussing interesting insights might have been neglected.

This study offers several insights to managers, marketers and policymakers involved in the issue of the obesity prevention. Since obesity represents a crucial challenge for public health at a global level, with its incidence reaching epidemic proportions in recent decades, the results may be extremely useful and powerful because suggesting – by employing a robust resulting corpus of knowledge on this domain – several practical features, actions and tactics to face such an important challenge. Moreover, this paper offers for scholar and researcher a systematized knowledge around the issues of obesity prevention, together with a detailed research agenda emerging by the critical analysis of the emerging insights, and to practitioners systematized useful insights to project and develop their future business strategies.

By providing several actions and tactics for obesity prevention (e.g. as for product labeling, naming, packaging, assortment; the exploitation of new technologies for mobile applications design, self-monitoring, short message service (SMS) alert systems, digital therapeutics; the role of social advertising, nudge, social influence) this work perfectly match the emerging societal orientation related to business, marketing and technology efforts to create a “better” society.

The study shed lights the need for a holistic approach to obesity prevention, involving interaction between individual main topics. Importantly this is the first study to analyze the issue of obesity prevention by considering a multidisciplinary corpus of literature, analyzed trough an individual-centric orientation.

This study aims to examine Victorian primary school parents’ perspectives about a potential school-provided lunch program (LP).

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in Victoria, Australia, in 2022 to explore parents’ perceptions regarding the lunch menu, funding source, amount willing to pay, frequency of meals and special dietary needs of a school-provided LP.

Over half of parents (57% out of 359) said they would allow their child to participate in a school LP, 34% were unsure and only 9% said they would not. The opportunity for hot cooked lunches at school and the perceived convenience for parents were the top two reasons for favouring such a program. Fifty-eight percent were in favour of hybrid-type funding from both the government and parents. The most preferred amount to pay per meal was AUD5-6 (43%), followed by AUD3-4 (25%). Parents expected meals to be healthy and made from whole food and cater to the special dietary and cultural needs of their children. They also expected enough time to be allocated so children could eat and enjoy the meals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore Victorian parents’ perceptions regarding the above aspects of a school-provided LP. The findings suggest that parents are receptive to a school-provided LP; they, however, did have several expectations regarding the menu and time for eating. These findings provide important directions for designing future school-provided LPs at primary schools in Australia.