Differences in health and taste attitudes and reported behaviour among Finnish, Dutch and British consumers: a cross-national validation of the Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS)

The Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS) developed by Roininen, Lahteenm aki and Tuorila in 1999 measure the importance of health and taste aspects of foods in the food choice process. These multi-item scales consist of set s of statements, ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree", whic h further divide into three Health (General health interest, Light product interest and Natural product interest) and three Taste (Craving for sweet f oods, Using food as a reward and Pleasure) sub-scales. Finnish (N=467), Dut ch (N=477), and British (N=361) respondents completed a questionnaire which contained four components: the HTAS, a separate "paper and pencil task" of choosing a food for a snack; pleasantness, healthiness and frequency of co nsumption of eight foods; and the Restraint Eating Scale of the Dutch Eatin g Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ). The latter three components were included in order to validate various aspects of the HTAS. The factor structure of HTAS was found to be equal in all three countries. However, there were some minor differences in factor loadings among countries, e.g. the Natural pro duct interest and Pleasure sub-scale items had lower factor loadings in the UK than in Finland and The Netherlands. Finnish respondents had the most p ositive attitude towards light products. Dutch and British respondents scor ed higher on all Taste sub-scales than their Finnish counterparts. Responde nts' health-related attitudes were good predictors of their "healthy food c hoices" in the snack task and self-reported consumption. Two of the Taste s ub-scales (Craving for sweet foods and Using food as a reward) predicted we ll respondents' self-reported consumption of, for example, full-fat chocola te bars. All the Health and two of the Taste sub-scales proved to be useful tools for characterizing consumer attitudes within and between countries. (C) 2001 Academic Press.