Abstract
Objective: To assess the relationships between an index of per capita income and the intake of a variety of individual foods as well as groups of food for men and women in different age groups.
Design: Cross-sectional national survey of free-living men and women.
Subjects: A sample of 5053 males and 5701 females aged 18 y and over who completed the Australian National Nutrition Survey 1995.
Methods: Information about the frequency of consumption of 88 food items was obtained. On the basis of scores on the Food Frequency Questionnaire, regular and irregular consumers of single foods were identified. The relationships between regularity of consumption of individual foods and per capita income were analysed via contingency tables. Food variety scores were derived by assigning individual foods to conventional food group taxonomies, and then summing up the dichotomised intake scores for individual foods within each food group. Two-way ANOVA (income × age group) were performed on the food variety scores for males and females, respectively.
Results: Per capita income was extensively related to the reported consumption of individual foods and to total and food group variety indices. Generally, both men and women in low income households had less varied diets than those in higher-income households. However, several traditional foods were consumed less often by young high-income respondents, especially young women.
Conclusions: Major income differentials in food variety occur in Australia but they are moderated by age and gender. Younger high-income women, in particular, appear to have rejected a number of traditional foods, possibly on the basis of health beliefs. The findings also suggest that data aggregation has marked effects on income and food consumption relationships.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics National Nutrition Survey (ABS NNS) (1995): Confidentialized Unit Record File (CURF). Commonwealth of Australia. 1999.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (1995): National Health Survey: Users' Guide. Canberra: AGPS ABS NHS Cat 4363.0.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (1997): Australian National Nutrition Survey (1995). Canberra: AGPS, ABS NNS Cat 4801.0.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (1998): Household income survey shows effect of life cycle. Canberra: Media Release 6523.0.
Douglas M & Nicod M (1974): Taking the biscuit: The structure of British meals. New Society 30, 744–747.
Falk RF & Miller NB (1992): A Primer for Soft Modeling. Akron, OH: The University of Akron Press.
Fischler C (1993): A nutritional cacophony or the crisis of food selection in affluent societies. In: For a Better Nutrition in the 21st Century, eds P Leathwood, M Horisberger & WPT James, pp 57–65. New York: Nestle Nutrition Series, Raven Press Ltd.
Grunert KG, Brunso K & Bisp S (1997): Food-related lifestyle: development of a cross-culturally valid instrument for market surveillance. In Values, Lifestyles and Psychographics, eds LR Kahle & L Chiagouris, pp 337–354. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Hodgson JM, Hsu-Hage BH-H & Wahlqvist ML (1994): Food variety as a quantitative descriptor of food intake. Ecol. Food Nutr. 32, 137–148.
Johansson L, Thelle DS, Bjørneboe G-E Aa & Drevon CA (1999): Healthy dietary habits in relation to social determinants and lifestyle factors. Br. J. Nutr. 81, 211–220.
Lasheras C, Patterson AM, Casado C & Fernandez S (2001): Effects of education on the quality of life, diet, and cardiovascular risk factors in an elderly Spanish community population. Exp. Aging Res. 27, 257–270.
Loudon DL & Della Bitta AJ (1993): Consumer Behavior: Concepts and Applications. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Najman JM (1993): Health and poverty: past, present, and prospects for the future. Soc. Sci. Med. 36, 157–166.
Rossiter JR (1995): ‘Spending power’ and the Subjective Discretionary Income (SDI) Scale. Adv. Consum. Res. 22, 236–240.
Sellin N (1986): Partial least squares analyses. Int. J. Educ. Res. 10, 189–220.
Shepherd R & Sparks P (1994): Modeling food choice. In Measurement of Food Preferences, eds. HJH MacFie & DMH Thomson, pp 202–226. London: Blackie Academic & Professional.
Smeeding TM & Weinberg DH (2001): Toward a uniform definition of household income. Review of Income and Wealth 47, 1–24.
SPSS for Windows (2001): Version 11. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Steptoe A, Pollard TM & Wardle J (1995): Development of a measure of the motives underlying the selection of food: the Food Choice Questionnaire. Appetite 25, 267–284.
Tomlinson M & Warde A (1993): Social class and change in eating habits. Br. Food J. 95, 3–10.
Turrell G (1996): Structural, material and economic influences on the food-purchasing choices of socio-economic groups. Aust. N. Z. J. Public Health 6, 611–617.
Turrell G (1998): Socioeconomic differences in food preference and their influence on healthy food choices. J. Hum. Nutr. Diet. 11, 135–149.
Wardle J, Parmenter K & Waller J (2000): Nutrition knowledge and food intake. Appetite 34, 269–275.
Whiteman J (1966): The function of food in society. Nutrition 20, 4–8.
Worsley A (1988): Cohabitation-gender effects on human food consumption. Int. J. Biosocial Sci. 10, 107–122.
Worsley A (1989): Australians' food beliefs and behaviours. Aust. J. Nutr. Diet. 46, 23–34.
Worsley A, Crawford D, Ball K & Blasche R (2001): Social economic status and food consumption. Nutrition Australia, Melbourne, October.
Acknowledgements
Kylie Ball is supported by a Public Health postdoctoral fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). David Crawford is supported by an NHMRC/National Heart Foundation Career Development Award.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Worsley, A., Blasche, R., Ball, K. et al. Income differences in food consumption in the 1995 Australian National Nutrition Survey. Eur J Clin Nutr 57, 1198–1211 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601670
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601670
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Diet quality and household income level among students: 2014 National Health and Nutrition Survey Japan
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2021)
-
Are dietary inequalities among Australian adults changing? a nationally representative analysis of dietary change according to socioeconomic position between 1995 and 2011–13
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (2018)
-
Consumer attitudes and misperceptions associated with trends in self-reported cereal foods consumption: cross-sectional study of Western Australian adults, 1995 to 2012
BMC Public Health (2017)
-
Australia’s nutritional food balance: situation, outlook and policy implications
Food Security (2017)
-
Healthy eating norms and food consumption
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2014)