FAMILY RESEMBLANCE IN BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND INTENTIONS TOWARDS CONSUMPTION OF 20 FOODS - A STUDY AMONG 3 GENERATIONS OF WOMEN

Family resemblance in beliefs, attitudes and intentions towards the co nsumption of 20 foods that contribute to the fat intake was investigat ed in 97 adult women, their mothers and their grandmothers. Mean corre lation for elements from the Fishbein and Ajzen theory of reasoned act ion between younger and middle generations ranged from 0.09 to 0.17 an d between middle and older generations from 0.12 to 0.17. All signific ant correlations were positive. More statistically significant correla tions were found for liking attitudes between the younger and middle g enerations (p < 0.05 for ten out of 20 correlations) than for other pa irs. Between the older and younger generation the number of significan t correlations could be due to chance alone. From the relative importa nce of liking and good/bad attitude on intention it appeared that liki ng contributed the most to the variance in intention scores. Health re lated beliefs and attitudes became of increasing importance in the old er generations. From this study it can be concluded that mothers and t heir adult daughters resemble each other in beliefs, food preferences, attitudes and intentions, although resemblance is poor. (C) 1995 Acad emic Press Limited