WAYS YOUNG-ADULTS VIEW FOODS

To identify the ways in which 18 to 24 year olds view foods, a mail su rvey was constructed that included demographics, opinion items, a repe rtory grid rating foods against factors thought to influence food inta ke, and a food frequency. Of the 1475 respondents, 736 were college st udents (students), 237 were college graduates (graduates), and 328 wer e high school graduates not attending school (nonstudents). Factor ana lysis for the total group and for each subgroup examined underlying vi ews held by the respondents. Findings showed that the respondents view ed foods in terms of physical/social aspects, whether they were health -promoting or fattening, importance of nutrition with adequacy of mone y and food shopping/preparation skills, and adequacy of stores and coo king facilities. For students, importance of nutrition disappeared as a perception while convenience emerged. For graduates, adequacy of mon ey disappeared while importance of nutrition appeared as a strong perc eption. The nonstudents showed a fifth factor identifying satiety valu e of food as a strong perception while importance of nutrition disappe ared. Habit was the individual variable showing the highest correlatio n with frequency of consumption of selected foods. The results suggest that respondents Viewed foods differently based on whether or not the y were students. Nutrition messages may need to focus on the different ways in which foods are viewed to be effective.