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European Master in Business Studies Universität Kassel

EXPOSÉ Explaining Differences in Consumer Behaviour and Lifestyle: Comparison of Sportsmen and Couch Potatoes / Sedentaries

Submitted by Luca Rocchetti Kassel, Germany 17/10/2015

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Explaining Differences in Consumer Behaviour and Lifestyle | 1

List of Abbrevations

AFP Agence France-Presse

BMI Body Weight Index

FDA US Food & Drug Administration

HBM Health Belief Model

RFT Regulatory Focus Theory

TPB Theory of Planned Behaviour

TRA Theory of Reasoned Action

WHO World Health Organization


Abstract

Title: Differences in Consumer Behaviour and Lifestyle between Sportsmen and Couch

Potatoes / Sedentaries

Key Words: Consumer Behaviour; Health; Healthy Food; Lifestyle; Sedentary; Sportsmen

Background

Nowadays, the rate of people overweight and obese is increasing worldwide. The main two

causes are shortage of the physical activity done and the bad quality of food consumed.

Although it is difficult to define exactly what a healthy lifestyle is, there are some guidelines

spread by the countries and different authorities and agencies with the aim to help citizens

being healthy. Nevertheless, given the recent digits and trends, it seems that not many people

are aware of this problem or they just do not care.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to verify whether it exists and how sport activities influence the

behaviour of people in conducting a healthy lifestyle. Indeed, in the previous literature, only

few studies have been done in this field and quite a long time ago and focusing on a particular

group of people (for instance children 9-10 Yo,), while the majority of the studies focus on

whether there is a correlation between sport activities and weight or diet.

Method

An online and paper survey will be spread among people living in Italy, Great Britain

(England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland) and German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria)

in order to collect the data necessary in order to carry out a quantitative research. Data will be

analysed through the use of software such as Sphinx iQ and Declic.


Introduction

Background

Health and healthy lifestyle

It is important to conduct a healthy lifestyle and, in particular, to be healthy because being

overweight and obese increase the risk of mortality. Indeed, they may lead to some chronic

diseases such as diabetes and hypertension but also cancer, just to name a few.

Some of the most common suggestions for a healthy lifestyle are eating many fruits and

vegetables, avoiding eating fat and sugary drinks, avoiding deep fried foods, doing some

physical activity every day as much as possible (i.e. climbing the stairs instead of using the

elevator, if possible opting for walking instead of using the car...).

It is difficult to define exactly what a healthy lifestyle is but one short definition that better tries

to explain is the following:

“A healthy lifestyle construct is operationalized as the level of physical activities an individual

undertakes, such as natural food consumption, health care, and life equilibrium” (Chen, 2009,

p. 169).

Nowadays, almost all the countries are facing problems related to health and obesity. Two main

causes, a part from natural factor affecting some cases, are lack of physical activity and bad

alimentation. According to the World Health Organization statistics (WHO, 2015), the

“number of people obese has more than double since 1980 and in 2014 more than 1.9 billion

adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 600 million were obese”.

People are classified to be overweight when they have a body weight index (BMI), which is a

ratio of weight to height, of more than 25 and obese when it is more then 30.

“Europe faces an obesity crisis of "enormous proportions" as unhealthy diets and physical

inactivity inflate waistlines and health costs”, the World Health Organization claimed during

the European Congress on Obesity in Prague, 2015.

In the UK, "one third (33 percent) of women are forecast to be obese in 2030, compared with

over one quarter (26 percent) in 2010," the congress press statement said.

According to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (National Statistics, 2013), in

2011/12, 15.5 million adults participated in sport at least once a week for 30 minutes at


moderate intensity. This equated to 36% of adults (41% of men and 31% of women). This

percentage is low, especially for women.

According to Eurostat (Eurostat, 2014), the share of the population that was overweight or

obese generally increased with age.

That is due to different reasons linked to nowadays life. Indeed, modern life and the

environment in where we live highly influence people’s lifestyle.

Adults spend about six hours a day engaged in sedentary pursuits (watching TV and other

screen time, reading and other low-energy activities). On average, men and women spend 2.8

hours watching television per weekday and this rises to about three hours on weekends.

Due to the lack of green spaces and changes of the conception of the city itself, the majority of

the activities done in the leisure time are indoors rather than outdoors.

Many people do not have breakfast in the morning and do not eat enough fruits and vegetables.

Longer working hours and more desk-job have double negative effect: they limit the

opportunities to do other sport activities during the working day and cause people to eat “out-

meal” at any time of the day.

Studies conducted led to the results that “in general, studies do not support the hypothesis that

obese people eat more, or are less physically active than nonobese people” (Baecke, van

Staveren, & Burema, 1983). However, that studies were done in 1983 or earlier, therefore their

validity today may not be true anymore.

Food

In the last years, it is increased the perceived importance of what we eat. That is caused, also,

by food crises, such as mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth epidemic, the Belgian dioxin scandal

(Miles & Frewer, 2001), the use of pesticides and hormones. Those are only a few of the food

incidents and scandal that came out in the last years. At the same time, also the environmental

awareness has increased. Those two factors combined together brought an increase of demand

for the healthy foods.

According to the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, “consumers’ increasing demand for

organic food may also be attributable to socially-conscious consumerism. More consumers are

aware of the environmental, social, and economic impacts their choices may incur” (OTA,

2010).


Consuming healthy food reassure individuals regarding their healthy situation. Therefore,

according to a national consumer survey conducted by Simmons Market Research Bureau

(1993), more than one-third of consumers indicated that they are willing to pay more for

environmentally safe or ethical products than for conventional products.

It is quite difficult to define which foods are healthy and which are not. Indeed, every single

individual has different nutritional needs. In addition to this, a food may be healthy or not

according to how much of it we eat (portion size) and how often. Finally, other factors to

consider are the age, sex and whether an individual does sport activities or not.

According to (Chen, 2009, pag.166), “organic farming refers to a farming system which uses

organic manure and avoids or largely refrains from using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and

chemicals”. The aim of organic agriculture is to be environmental-friendly, for example

maintaining the fertility of the land and preserving the natural properties of foods produced.

Some countries try to give to citizens a food guides such as “Canada’s Food Guide” for Canada

or the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

FDA states that a food is considered healthy and therefore, it is possible to write so in the label,

when it is low in fat and saturated fat and when the quantity of cholesterol and sodium are not

more than a given edge. In addition to that, it also has to contain at least 10% of one or more

substance such as protein, iron, Vitamin A or C etc. (www.fda.gov).

Health organizations, supermarkets, companies and governments have been trying to combat

diet-related disease, educating citizens, restricting the advertisement and providing them

guidelines and schemes in order to make them informed about what to eat and what not to eat.

Many different methods have been tried but each of them had a related drawback (Lobstein &

Davies, 2009). That’s because, as already said, it is difficult to define which food is healthy

and good and which is not because that varies person to person according to each’s own needs.

Organic Food

According to the Soil Association (Soil Association Organic Market Report 2015, 2015), the

global organic food market in 2013 reached the value of €45.8 billion. In 10 years, it faces an

increase of around 250%. The 47% of the global market was in Europe and Denmark,

Switzerland and Austria respectively have the highest market share worldwide. From those

digits, it is understandable how important this market is becoming within years.


Problem statement:

In the last period, the problem of overweight and obesity emerged. That is due to the kind of

life we live nowadays. People are more and more under time pressure and do not have time to

eat properly, least of all to cook. Because of that, more and more people eat fast food or pre-

cooked meal and eat “out-meal” whenever they have a break. Many people do not have

breakfast in the morning, which is considered the most important meal of the day. In addition

to that, there is the problem of the junk food and high caloric and/or food full of fat that are

normally preferred to fruit and vegetable.

Furthermore, many people do not do enough sport or do not do it at all. They spend a big part

of their time sitting (for instance for working and for studying) and too much time in front of

the TV and/or PC.

However, when they are expose to subliminal messages, they tend to consume more healthy

foods than what they used to before (Scarpa, Urkmez, & Wagner, 2015).

Purpose

The purpose is to study whether doing sport affect health of people not only as a primary cause

but also as a secondary cause affecting the lifestyle of the person that therefore, people will eat

more healthy foods. It is expected that the majority of the people that do sport, in order to

increase the gain they can get from it, try to inform themselves about nutrition and are more

careful about what they eat. At the same way, since fresh food and raw materials will be

preferred to pre-cooked food or fast-food, also the time they spend for cooking and for eating

is higher than people that do not sport.

In the other studies it has been studied the attitude toward organic foods and/or healthy life

style, the relationship between sport and weight or between sport and diet (van Sluijs et al.,

2008) but just few of them studied the importance that sport may have in having a healthy

lifestyle. In addition to that, the few studies that have been done in this field, just focus on

particular subject, such as child 9-10 years old, and they are very old. Therefore, their results

may have lost their validity.

Theoretical Background

Several factors forge and influence actions and behaviours of individuals. There are many

theories about individuals’ behaviour decisions and about what are the motivations that lead


them to act in that way. In addition to that, there are also theories regarding the health education,

health promotion and healthy behaviour.

It follows an explanation of some theories that have been studied in the years and that influence

the final choice and behaviour of individuals.

The choice of whether to buy or not a given food and which one to buy among the range of

offers is mostly driven by the information owned by the individual. A decision is considered

to be good when it brings either to a high outcome benefits (it is worthwhile) and/or has low

outcome costs (it is worth it) (Higgins, 2000).

When shopping, in order to evaluate a product, consumers evaluate it according to both their

knowledge and the information they got, whether before shopping or while doing so. According

to the Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) (Higgins, 1997), consumers react in different ways to

different types of information. There are two different motivational orientations that activate

different needs, according to each own type of self-regulation strategy. Those two orientations

are: promotion focus and prevention focus.

PROMOTION FOCUS PREVENTION FOCUS

Focus on: Hopes, wishes and

aspirations

Protection, responsibilities,

duties and obligations

Moved by Presence (or absence) of

outcomes

Absence (or presence) of

negative outcomes

Motivated by Meet desired end-states Avoid mismatches to desired

end-states or standards

Strategy (Kirmani & Zhu,

2007)

Apply eagerness-related

strategies

Prefer to use accuracy and

vigilance-related strategies

It is about: What to do during goal

pursuit

What not to do / what to

prevent during goal pursuit

Importance of cues Sensitive to presence /

absence of positive cues

Sensitive to presence /

absence of negative cues

Sensitive to (Aaker & Lee,

2006)

Gain / no-gain Losses / No-losses

Feedbacks Relevant to the goal and indicate whether the goal has been

reached or not


The cue-utilization theory and the Health Belief Model (HBM) are related to the Regulatory

Focus Theory.

As already said, consumers evaluate products according to the information they have. Those

information used to make the assessment are commonly mentioned as cues. Consumers in a

situation of indecision and with no information may use one or more cues as a basis for their

evaluation of product quality (Cox, 1967). In particularly, what they will look is information

about products’ remarkable attributes that they will use to shape their final evaluation.

The Cue Utilization Theory states that it exists two separate dimensions (predictive and

confidence values) that evoke cues. The predictive value (PV) is “... the degree to which

consumers associate a given cue with product quality” (Richardson, Dick, & Jain, 1994) while

the Confidence value (CV) is “... the degree to which consumers have confidence in their ability

to use and judge that cue accurately” (Richardson et al., 1994).

The Health Belief Model is one of the most common, used and recognized model that try to

explain and predict health behaviours. It was developed in the 1950s by a group of social

psychologists and, at a later stage, extended by researchers with the addiction of other variables.

It is related to the prevention focus of the Regulatory Focus Theory because the key element

of the HBM is the avoidance of negative health consequences.

The core assumption of the HBM is that a person take a health-related action if he/she:

1. Feels that a negative condition can be avoided;

2. Has the positive expectation of avoiding a negative health-condition through

undertaking a recommended action;

3. Feel to be able to perform the health action successfully

The four main constructs of this model are perceived susceptibility, perceived severity,

perceived benefits and perceived barriers. Those four elements represent the perceived threats

and perceived benefits which, in turn, determine whether an individual is ready or not to

undertake the action. Later, a fifth element, cue to action, has been added to the model and it

is needed to push toward and to stimulate the action. Finally, in 1988, (Rosenstock, Strecher,

& Becker, 1988), added the self-efficacy, which is the consciousness of having the ability to

undertake the action successfully.


1. Perceived susceptibility is one’s opinion regarding the likelihood he/she has of getting

a condition. If a person believes that he/she is at risk, it is probable that he will take

some action to prevent himself from that to happen while, if this person do not feel

himself at risk, it is more probable that he will undertake unhealthy behaviours.

2. Perceived severity is one’s opinion about the seriousness of a disease and its

consequences.

3. Perceived benefits are one’s opinion about the effectiveness and efficacy of the

suggested behaviour in decreasing the risk or seriousness of the impact deriving from

the disease.

4. Perceived barriers are one’s opinion about the obstacles that he runs into for changing

the behaviour. Those barriers may be both tangible and psychological.

5. Cues to action are factors that help and support people taking action and change their

behaviour. They may be events, people or things. Examples may be media reports

(Graham, Liggons, & Hypolite, 2002), reminder from a health care institution (Ali,

2002), illness experience from friends, family members or relatives and mass media

campaigns.

6. Self-Efficacy is one’s belief in his own ability to take action. If someone feels he is not

able to do something correctly, he will not try at all to do it.

Two of the theories mostly used for studying the health-behaviour-related intentions are the

Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and the related Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), which

study the relationship between behaviour and beliefs, attitude and intentions. At the basis of

those two theories is the postulate that the most important factor that influence behaviour is the

behavioural intention, which, in turn, is influenced by a person’s attitude toward that behaviour

and the so-called subjective norm. The latter is the beliefs that the most important person for

the individual, approve or not the behaviour.

TPB can be considered as an expansion of the TRA because it includes a construct more,

perceived behavioural control, which had been added by (Driver & Ajzen, 1991).

To resume the main concepts of the two theories are:

Behavioural intention: perceived probability to perform the behaviour;

Attitude: Personal thinking about the behaviour (it is good or bad?);


Subjective Norm: personal opinion about whether most people approve the behaviour

or not;

Perceived behaviour control (only for TPB): people believe that they can control the

behaviour (it is up to the individual or not). The idea is that if people believe that they

can control the behaviour, they may commit themselves to perform it.

Nonetheless, “behavioural intentions do not reliably lead to changes in behaviour and the

“intentin-behaviour gap” remains a major focus of research in health psychology” (Allen, 2008,

p.62).

Review of Literature

Food Perception and Choice

Perceptions of foods influence the food choice (Steptoe, Pollard, & Wardle, 1995). Many

dimensions influence the perception that individuals have about food. Some have been studied

and proved such as healthiness (Ross & Murphy, 1999), taste (Raghunathan, Naylor, & Hoyer,

2006), satiating capacity (Oakes, 2006) and freshness (Oakes & Slotterback, 2002).“Health is

secondary to taste in selecting food” (Raghunathan et al., 2006). The most important features

associated with healthy food are perceived freshness (Oakes & Slotterback, 2002) and

perceived fat content (Carels, Harper, & Konrad, 2006; Carels, Konrad, & Harper, 2007; Oakes

& Slotterback, 2001, 2002; Rizk & Treat, 2014).

“Consumers form perceptions about the physical and psychological features of a brand from

various information sources” (Cobb-Walgren, Ruble, & Donthu, 1995). Objective sources such

as Consumer Reports and subjective sources such as advertising and personal experience may

affect the perception of the physical product while, on the other hand, “psychological

distinctions come primarily through advertising”.

Taste is the most important reason for which a food is chosen, followed by health motives and

other considerations (Shepherd & Stockley, 1985; Shepherd & Towler, 1992; Towler &

Shepherd, 1992; Tuorila & Pangborn, 1988). The factors that influence the choice are many:

taste, perceived nutritional benefits, body image, family and cultural preferences, and prior

purchase habits (Shepherd, 1989).

Raghunathan, Naylor and Hoyer (2006) found out that the less healthy a food is thought, the

best is its related tasty, the more is enjoyable while eating it and the higher is the likelihood it


is chosen when the hedonic aim is the main one. In that case, even if a less fat product was

available, consumers may still prefer the food high in fat.

However, “consumers no longer consider good taste and healthy as attributes for which making

a trade-off is expected or even obligatory” (Verbeke, 2006).

Moreover, those are not the only factors influencing the choice because also “consumers’

beliefs and expectations, shaped by their experiences in their daily lives, often influence their

judgment of products and services.” (Shiv, Carmon, & Ariely, 2005).

Among the different countries, there is a high level of agreement in ranking the importance of

the factors determining food choices. Consistent to the other studies mentioned above, the four

most important factors are, respectively, price, sensory appeal, natural content and health

(Markovina et al., 2015).

Finally, some of the factors that influence the perception of the healthiness of a food are type

and processing of raw materials, origin, production date, conserving method, packaging, use

of additives etc. (Bech-Larsen & Grunert, 2001; Jacoby, 1985).

Definition of Organic Foods

“By definition, organic foods are not genetically modified and are produced specifically

without the application of synthetic chemicals such as pesticides and fertilisers” (Carels et al.,

2007). “Specifically, organic foods include less harmful additives and more primary nutrients

(vitamin C, dry matter, minerals) and secondary nutrients (phyto-nutrients) than traditional

foods” (Hsu & Chen, 2014, p.6).

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) describes organic food as food ‘‘produced by

farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water

to enhance environmental quality for future generations’’ (USDA, 2007). Organic meat,

poultry, eggs, and dairy products are free of antibiotics or growth hormones. Also, organic

food is not grown or processed with conventional pesticides, synthetic fertilizers,

bioengineering, or ionizing radiation (USDA, 2007).

Attitude toward Organic Foods

In general consumers have a positive attitude towards organic foods and they use to associate

with them benefits such as superior taste, environmental-friendliness, improved health, safer

food and more animal welfare (Hughner, McDonagh, Prothero, Shultz, & Stanton, 2007;


Marian, Chrysochou, Krystallis, & Thøgersen, 2014). They also realized that there were other

factors influencing negatively the willing to purchase organic food: unavailability, scepticism

toward certification bodies and organic labels, insufficient marketing efforts, satisfaction with

current food source and sensory defect. However, the biggest obstacle to purchase is the high

price (Hjelmar, 2011). Nonetheless, we cannot give for grant that, in case the price would be

lower, more people would buy organic food. This is shown in the results obtained in the study

in “Limits to Growth in Organic Sales” (Bunte, van Galen, Kuiper, & Tacken, 2010).

In fact, price has an important role as a source in choosing food but a lower price not always is

better. Indeed, it is often perceived as a quality signal (Erickson & Johansson, 1985; Völckner

& Hofmann, 2007). The selling price has an important value and needs to be carefully set. In

fact, odd prices (non-zero ending in the cent digit) may be thought to boost the sales but,

actually, it also may make the products seen as low quality (Suri, Anderson, & Kotlov, 2004;

Wagner & Beinke, 2006). Nonetheless, this kind of operation is prevalent in Western

economies (Guéguen & Legoherel, 2004; Schindler, 2001). Price for organic products has a U-

shape (Ngobo, 2011). That means that price cannot be too low because it would affect the

perception of the quality but neither too high because, in that way, consumers would not be

willing to buy the product anymore. In the same study, Ngobo (2011) also found out that sales

promotion have a negative effect in sales. Therefore, price has a double value: it is not viewed

only as a cost but also as a cue to quality (Leibenstein, 1950; Völckner & Hofmann, 2007).

However, a high cost is more important for conventional food rather than organic food

(Zeithaml, 1988). In fact, for the former, it may assume a quality signal while, for the latter, it

is perceived more as a cost because they already have another quality cue then price (being

organic food).

It is believed that personal benefits, such as health and nutrition, or societal benefits, such as

environmental friendly are the two benefits that derives from the consumption of organic foods

(Klöckner & Ohms, 2009).

Organic Foods Evaluation

There are three different categories of product attributes: search, experience and credence

properties (Darby & Karni, 1973; Nelson, 1970). Products’ attributes relapse into one of those

three according to when consumers can evaluate them. In fact, according to their

characteristics, they can be evaluated before purchase, after purchase or not at all. Search

attributes are the easiest to evaluate and that can be done before purchasing simply by


physically checking products. Experience attributes are not directly noticeable and thus they

can be evaluated only after purchasing and use of the product. Finally, credence attributes

cannot be evaluated by the consumers even after purchase and use of the products (Ford, Smith,

& Swasy, 1988).

Examples of these three attributes for the organic foods are: search attributes are colour, size

and price; experience attributes are taste and texture and credence attributes are environment-

friendly, animal welfare and place of origin (Girard & Dion, 2010; Lee & Yun, 2015; Wirth,

Stanton, & Wiley, 2011).

Two attributes that are relevant for the evaluation of food quality of organic food are

observation and reflection traits (Torjusen, Lieblein, Wandel, & Francis, 2001). The former are

the ones that can be directly observable, such as freshness, touch and look; the latter are the

ones that can be experienced only after their consumption. They are related to health, nutrition

quality, environmental-friendly and animal welfare.

The concept of reflection traits and credence attributes are quite similar.

There is also a summary of the finding of all the studies about organic food that were been

done and published in the period between 1985 and 2005 (Hughner et al., 2007). They found

out nine key factors for purchasing organic foods:

1. Health and nutrition concern

2. Superior taste

3. Concern for environment

4. Food safety / lack of confidence in the conventional food industry

5. Concern over animal welfare

6. Support of the local economy

7. Wholesomeness

8. Nostalgia

9. Fashionableness / curiosity

Nevertheless, even if a consumer has positive attitudes toward organic foods, that does not

mean that he will ineludibly purchase them (in accordance to the intention-behaviour theory)

(Boulstridge & Carrigan, 2000; Moraes et al., 2012).


Hypotheses Development

This is the general scheme of hypothesis developed, to which it will follow a more detailed

explanation of how those hypothesis have been thought.

Explanation

“An active healthy lifestyle can be characterized by the activities in which people are engaged”

(Goetzke, Nitzko, & Spiller, 2014) and, lifestyle, influence in turn the choice of organic and

local foods (Nie & Zepeda, 2011) which are normally considered healthy foods. Therefore,

sportsmen may have a healthier lifestyle than other people do. Because of that, the first

hypothesis is

H1: Sportsmen care more about their alimentation than other people.

A healthy lifestyle essentially means two things: doing sport activities and eating healthy

(Goetzke et al., 2014). In order to satisfy the latter, sportsmen will tend to buy foods and raw

materials in places they feel they can trust. Same thing will occur with brands. Once they feel

they can trust a brand or a seller, they probably keep buying those products unless they do not

get some negative and unexpected information. Therefore, the loyal for the brands and seller

will be higher if compared to other people that just look for the cheapest product with a

satisfying taste. Eating healthy also means buying and consuming prime products or organic

products which are more expensive (Barratt, 1997; Jetter & Cassady, 2006). In fact, sometimes,

it is less expensive to eat in a fast-food than cooking for your own (Andreyeva, Long, &

Sportsmen care more about their

alimentation.

They spend more

They are more loyal to brands.

They are careless about price.

They are less sensitive to promotion.

Since they use raw materials and no

pre-cooked foods...

They spend more time in cooking.

They have different purchase habits.

They are more informed about

alimentation.

If a person eat healthy food but

do not have a healty lifestyle...

He is concerned about

environment.

He is concerned about animal-

welfare.


Brownell, 2010; Powell & Han, 2011). It has been studied that eating foods and diet that are

recommended by the local Food Healthy Policy in London are more expensive and less

available than alternatives, especially in the suburbs (Liese, Weis, Pluto, Smith, & Lawson,

2007; Mooney, 1990). Those are the two hypotheses construing from that:

H2a: Sportsmen spend more for food in a weekly basis than other people do.

H2b: Sportsmen are more careless about the price than the ones who do not practice

sports.

H3a: Sportsmen are more loyal to brands they purchase than the ones who do not

practice sports.

H3b: Sportsmen are more loyal to sellers they feel they can trust than the ones who do

not practice sports.

As already said, sportsmen need to feel they can trust a brand and sellers, and that they are sure

to know that what they eat is not harmful for them (Wier, O’Doherty Jensen, Andersen, &

Millock, 2008). Therefore, they are less sensitive to price promotions made by other sellers

and/or brands that they do not use to purchase and consume. In fact, being willing to pay more

for the products, they will chose to purchase the products they use to purchase in the places in

which they use to. It follows that:

H4: Sportsmen are less sensitive to price promotions.

According to what said until now, sportsmen with a healthy eating habit, tend to cook for their

own rather than going to fast-food and/or eating pre-cooked meals. Because they do not opt for

pre-cooked meals, what they cook and eat are raw materials. Therefore, they prepare their

dishes from scratch and, in that way, they are sure that what they eat is a very health aliment.

However, doing so, take much longer than what it would take to prepare pre-cooked meals.

This is the following hypothesis:

H5: Sportsmen spend more time in cooking than other people.

Connected to the fact that sportsmen prefer eating fresh products and raw materials and that

they go to buy their food in places they trust, they also probably have different purchase habits

if compared to the one of the other people. Generically speaking, shopping has to be efficient

in order to fit into the daily schedule (Hjelmar, 2011). However, sportsmen, rather than going

to the big supermarket, in which the food they sell is produced in an huge amount and it is not


always sure the provenience and the healthiness, they probably rather go directly to the farmers

for buying milk, eggs and vegetables or to the butcher for buying meat. In fact, local shops are

normally considered to sell more healthy products than supermarkets and the majority of

customers go there with the specific intention of buying healthy fresh foods (Trobe, 2001).

More in general, sportsmen probably go to local shops instead of big supermarkets and discount

shops. In addition to this, since they use fresh raw materials, they will probably go to each

shops at least 2-3 times per week instead of going just once per week or once every two weeks

at the supermarket. In fact, healthy food normally last few days and it is not possible to buy

those products just once every week or 15 days and, moreover, eating healthy means eating

fresh. Because of that, the purchases done will not be just a big one but, they will be many.

Therefore, because the purchases places are not just one but many, the amount spent for each

purchase will be lower. In conclusion, sportsmen probably do many smaller and more frequent

purchases rather than a few (or once) big purchase. The following hypotheses are:

H6a: Sportsmen do not prefer purchasing from supermarkets.

H6b: Sportsmen do not prefer purchasing from discount shops.

H6c: The frequency of purchase per week of sportsmen is higher than the one of the

other people.

H6d: The single amount spent for each purchase is lower than the single amount spent

for each purchase by the other people.

Since a healthy lifestyle influences the consumers’ attitude toward organic foods and that

consumers can develop a positive attitude toward organic foods if they are enthusiastic of

undertaking healthy physical activities, such as natural food consumption and health care

(Chen, 2009; Gil, Gracia, & Sánchez, 2000), it follows that

H7: Sportsmen are more informed about alimentation.

Being more informed lead them to make choices that are more reasoned. Therefore, there is a

positive relationship with nutrition knowledge and healthy lifestyle. In addition to that, “the

level of organic food knowledge was associated with the likelihood of being a local or organic

food shoppers” (Nie & Zepeda, 2011).

Although some individuals may be interested in their own health and therefore in healthy foods,

that does not imply that they buy and/or consume them. The reasons beyond that may be


several. In nowadays society, for example, we are living more and more under time pressure

and that could be a reason for not consuming organic foods (Buzzell, 2009; Wajcman, 2015).

In fact, “how much time we have matters just as much as how much money we have” (Goodin,

Rice, Parpo, & Eriksson, 2008). An important factor that caused the enormous growth of fast-

food consumption in the last years is the lack in time we are undergoing. The same applies for

ready meals and pre-cooked food, which are ready in much less time then what it would require

to make and cook a meal from fresh raw materials. Another reason, as already said many times,

may be the premium price of those kinds of foods.

At the opposite side, there may be someone concerned in healthy foods but that do not do any

sport activities because of his laziness or because of a lack of time as well. For example, they

may be people that switch to a vegetarian diet but still do not have a healthy lifestyle. In fact,

for vegetarian the most important factors of being so are health (but not healthy life) (Baker,

Thompson, & Palmer-Barnes, 2002; MacNair, 2001). Other important reasons to change eating

style is the cruelties against animals (McDonald, 2000). Finally, there are people that adopted

a vegetarian diet for health reasons and others that did so for ethical reasons (Jabs, Devine, &

Sobal, 1998).

Therefore, some people still follow an unhealthy lifestyle even if they have health

consciousness and vice versa. Based upon this:

H8a: People that consume healthy foods without having a healthy lifestyle, do so

primarily because they are concerned about the environment.

H8b: People that consume healthy foods without having a healthy lifestyle, do so

primarily because they are concerned about the animal-welfare.


Map of correlations


Methodology

I will ask to submit a survey about food consumption habit, sport activities and lifestyle to

different people living in different countries. According to the data founded, the countries I

will investigate are Great Britain (UK and Ireland) which are the countries with more

problems related to that field (such as obesity and chronic diseases); the German-speaking

countries (Germany and Austria) that seems to be in the average among the European

countries and Italy that seems to be the one with less problem among 19 countries with more

problem in Europe.

The following data are from Eurostat (Eurostat, 2014), unless differently specified.

Great Britain

England

Men: 43.7% overweight; 22.1% obese (3rd classified behind Malta and Slovenia)

Women: 32.8% overweigh; 23.9% obese. (1st classified)

Ireland

Nearly all adults in Ireland will be overweight by 2030, the European Congress on Obesity in

Prague was told (AFP, 2015).

According to the data collected in 1997-1999, 66.4% of males were overweight and 20.1%.

(The International Obesity Taskforce, 2015).

Ireland has the fourth highest prevalence of overweight and obesity in men in the EU and the

seventh highest prevalence among women (International Obesity Taskforce and European

Association for the Study if Obesity, 2002).

German-speaking countries

Germany

Men: 44.0% overweight; 16.1% obese (10th classified)

Women: 28.8% overweight; 15.6% obese. (10th classified)

Austria



Women: 29.5% overweight; 13.2% obese. (10th classified)

Italy


Women: 27.7% overweight; 9.3% are obese. (19th classified: last in the list)

Since it may be difficult to collect enough answers from GB to make the survey valid, the study

may be shifted into other two countries: US and/or China.

The selection of those countries is due to the fact that it may be interesting to check whether

and how there is a different behaviour between European people and American and/or Asian

ones. In addition to that:

USA

They are facing the overweight and obesity problems much more than how GB is. Indeed,

according to the data collected in 2011-2012, 69% of American over 20 years old are

overweight and 35.1% of them are obese. Those figures are even higher than the GB’s ones

(National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2014).

China

“China had low rates of obesity in 2013; 3.8% of men and 5.0% of women were obese in 2013”

(Ng et al., 2014). However, among the all 188 countries studied, China was the fourth country

with the highest increase in overweight/obesity prevalence among children and the tenth for

the adults (20 years old or more). From 1980 to 2013, children overweight went from 5.7% to

18.8% and adults from 11.3% to 27.9%.


Overview of Chapters

Abstract

Table of Content

Table of Abbreviation

1. Introduction

1.1 Importance of the Topic

1.2 Research Objectives

2. Literature Review

2.1 Food Perception and Choice

2.2 Definition of Organic Foods

2.3 Attitude toward Organic Foods

2.4 Organic Foods Evaluation

3. Hypotheses

4. Research Methodology

5. Analysis of Results

5.1 Results

5.2 Discussion

6. Implications

6.1 Managerial

6.2 Theoretical Implications

7. Conclusions

Bibliography


Work Plan

Period Phase Description

1 Now – 01.10 Exposé Complete and refine exposé

2 02.10-15.11 Questionnaire –

Experiment – Pre-test

Create the survey in the first half of the

month, refine it and test if it works

3 16.11-15.12 Gather the responses,

analysis

Collect all the responses I need for having

a valid sample and analyse the answers

4 16.12-15.01 Results Find out the implications and write the

conclusions

5 16.01-

deadline

Finalize Review and correct the work, prepare the

final presentation and

Work plan displayed according to the Gantt chart:

Now – 01.10 02.10 – 15.11 16.11 – 15.12 16.12-15.01 16.01 - deadline

1

2

3

4

5


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