Quantification of consumer attitudes to health and hedonic characteristicsof foods

Health and Taste Attitudes Questionnaires were developed to assess consumer s orientations toward the health and hedonic characteristics of foods. Item s were generated in a qualitative study. The original 37 items on health an d 44 on taste were rated from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" by a representative sample of 1005 Finnish adults (18-81 years). The number of i tems was reduced using factor and item analysis, resulting in 20 health- an d 18 taste-related statements. Three health-related and three taste-related factors were extracted. The health-related factors were labelled as "Gener al health interest", "Light product interest", and "Natural product interes t". The taste-related factors were named "Craving for sweet foods", "Using food as a reward", and "Pleasure". Cronbach's alphas of the multi-item scal es, based on the statements loading highly on each factor, ranged from 0.67 to 0.89. Age and gender affected the responses. Females were more interest ed in the health and taste aspects of foods than were males. Younger respon dents were less concerned with health but more interested in taste than wer e older respondents. A preliminary test of predictive validity was conducte d by analysing subjects' responses to foods with weak; and strong connotati ons of health and taste, and currently the questionnaires are being validat ed with further behavioural tests. (C) 1999 Academic Press.