Search

In the last two decades the prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases due to overeating has increased dramatically in many developed and developing countries and forecasts of obesity trends suggest that in 2030 almost 51% of the population will be obese. These data clearly remark the need to find effective ways to tackle the problem. In this context, the thesis aims at studying consumers? food-related behaviors with a specific focus on the role of time preferences and health-orientation. The work is organized as a collection of four independent studies analyzing different aspects of food behaviors, choices, and preferences. The main objective is to investigate the mechanisms through which time preferences and orientation to health are involved in individuals? decisions related to food consumption. The thesis also contributes to the literature attempting to propose novel approaches to measure time preferences and health-orientation. The main results indicate that different time preferences are associated with different food preferences and evaluation of product attributes, thus highlighting the need to account for such factor in the economic study of obesity. Similarly, health-orientation affects food-related behaviors. In particular it seems to be positively associated with the use of nutritional information and to be able to affect preferences for different label formats.

THIS IS A DRAFT. DO NOT CITE. Formally published as: Cavaliere, Alessia, Elisa De Marchi, and Alessandro Banterle. "Does consumer health-orientation affect the use of nutrition facts panel and claims? An empirical analysis in Italy." Food Quality and Preference 54 (2016): 110-116.

Individuals’ time preference is an important driver for several health-related behaviors, but there is still lack of knowledge about its relationship with specific food-related behaviors. In this paper we investigate if time preference may have a role in affecting consumers’ use of food label. The data were collected through a face-to-face survey on a sample of 540 Italian consumers. Time preference was estimated through an index including BMI, smoking behavior and physical activity. The analysis was made estimating a set of three equations. The results confirm our hypothesis that individuals with low time preference, who give more importance to future health outcomes, are more willing to use such information.

Diet-related chronic diseases, such as overweight and obesity, are worrisome not only from a medical point of view, but also in terms of monetary expenditures, these health problems are strictly linked to sizeable sanitary costs (Chou et al., 2004; Yaniv et al., 2009; Cawley and Meyerhoefer, 2012; Ruhm, 2012). These costs are mainly due to the purchase of medical care (direct costs), and to the loss of productivity caused by hill-health (indirect costs) (Rosin, 2008). To challenge these problems and improve public health it is of particular importance to study the determinants of food consumption, and understand the best way to effectively address consumers toward healthy eating. To this purpose, one of the most investigated topics in the last decades has been the role of food-related information. Economists have found evidences that food information can exert a positive effect in increasing consumer nutrition knowledge and in promoting healthier consumption. Hence, policy makers have proposed different policy interventions to provide consumers with more, and more detailed, information. These information measures have included the diffusion of dietary guidelines, the promotion of nutritional education programs in the schools, and also specific campaigns to increase public awareness concerning fruit and vegetables consumption or the negative effects of some unhealthy food and drinks. In this context, another and maybe more direct way to provide consumers with food-related information is represented by on-package food labels, which currently constitute the principal tool through which consumers can easily acquire information about food products. The key role of food labels in making individuals able to do more conscious diet choices has been well established by the main findings of the economic literature (Drichoutis et al., 2006; Drichoutis et al., 2008a; Drichoutis et al., 2009; Norgaard and Brunso 2009; Barreiro-Hurlè et al., 2010). Therefore, given the importance of on-packaging information, the EU has recently introduced the EU Regulation No. 1169/2011, published in October 2011, in order to make labels even more effective and boost their utility for consumers. This new low has established some rules concerning mandatory information, nutritional facts and also the graphical standards allowed on food labels in all the EU. Nonetheless, consumers are not always willing to make use of the information reported on labels, and this makes of crucial importance to investigate and understand which factors can be able to discourage consumers in using labels., Proceedings in Food System Dynamics, Proceedings in System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks 2014

Consumer inability to make healthy food choices and to maintain a balanced diet is one of the main determinants that can explain the growth of overweight and obesity. Many studies have focused on the different factors affecting food behaviour, but only few of these have considered the role of time preference. The term time preference refers to the rate at which a person is willing to trade a current utility with a delayed utility. Generally, a high time preference is associated with a low will to renounce to the present gratification in order to obtain a benefit in the future. On the contrary, consumers with low time preference are more willing to undertake short-term costs to get future improvements. Indeed, people who highly discount the future are expected to suffer overweight and obesity more than others. In this paper we aim at investigating if consumer time preference could be related to overweight or obesity problems, also considering other factors which are predicted to affect BMI. In order to carry out an empirical analysis we conducted a consumer survey using face to face interviews. The sample was composed by 240 consumers living in North Italy. A specific questionnaire was designed and for the empirical estimation was used an Ordinal Regression Model, where the dependent variable is expressed in terms of consumer BMI. The results revealed that the searching frequency for nutrition claims is negatively correlated with BMI. This suggests that this kind of information is not very effective in catching overweight and obese consumer attention. Moreover, the results show that time preference is negatively related to BMI, meaning that to give more importance to taste than to healthy aspects of foods may lead consumers to increase their probability to put on weight., Proceedings in Food System Dynamics, Proceedings in System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks 2013