Factors Affecting Food Consumption Management Behavior in Households of Central Najaf Abad County: Application of a Combined Model

According to the latest report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2017, the number of chronically undernourished people in the world has been estimated to have increased from 777 million in 2016 to 815 million. The majority (489 million) of these individuals live in countries struggling with conflict, violence, and fragility (FAO, 2018). Asia also has the highest rate of chronic malnutrition, which is often suffered under the influence of the killings, insecurities, displacements and homelessness as a result of the imposed war. With increasing hunger and malnutrition in the world, especially in the affected countries, understanding the need for food security becomes clearer (FAO, 2017). Based on this, ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition is possible with integrated actions to achieve this critical goal. One of the preventive approaches to improve food security and nutrition is the reduction of food waste. According to statistics provided by FAO (2017: 1), the number of undernourished population in Iran from 2014 to 2016 is 4.5 million people. That is while, based on FAO's recent report, from 1.3 billion tons of food wasted annually at the global level; Iran is responsible for 2.7%, which is equal to about 35 million tons of the total sum. Most food waste of Iranians is bread, fruit, vegetables and rice (FAO, 2018). Therefore, reducing food waste is one of the necessary measures to minimize the negative economic, social, and environmental consequences of these wastes and to ensure food security for the malnourished population as well as the growing global population for sustainable development. Many studies have shown that consumer food waste is affected by attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and emotions (Stefan et al., 2013; Stancu et al., 2016; Secondi et al., 2015; Graham-Rowe et al., 2015; Bruinessen, 2018; Yaqub, 2016). Hence, the uses of behavioral models have widely increased in different studies, in particular consumer waste behavior analysis that can lead to a better understanding of the determinants of the behavior of food consumption management. Accordingly, the present study was conducted to analyze the food consumption management behavior and its influencing factors in households in central of Najaf Abad County.

The statistical population of this study was all rural and urban households in central district of Najaf Abad County. The statistical sample of the study includes one person from each household aged 15-64, who is responsible for at least half of the cooking, shopping (effective in buying households) and managing their own homes in Najaf Abad County. Since women were responsible in all of the sample cases, they formed all respondents except one. Regarding the characteristics of the statistical population, stratified proportional random sampling method was applied. Sample size (405 households) was determined using the Bartlett et al.’s (2001) table, 197 households of which were rural and 208 households were urban. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire whose face validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and the reliability of the Likert scales of the questionnaire was also evaluated by conducting a pilot test study in a region outside the study area through calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.50-0.90).

The results showed that the food consumption management behavior in rural and urban samples was in desirable level. In addition, the results showed the adequacy of the combined model of the Norm Activation Model (NAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in predicting food consumption management behavior of the participants. The results of direct and indirect effects of independent variables of the integrated model on food consumption management behavior showed that in rural part, behavioral intention and perceived behavioral control, and in the urban one, besides of these two factors, also the attitude towards food waste had direct and significant effect on food consumption management behavior. Furthermore, attitude towards food waste, moral norms, social norms, guilty feeling, internal attribution and awareness of the problem in both targeted areas, had indirect and significant effects on food consumption management behavior. In rural sample, the variable of perceived behavioral control generally had the highest total causal effect on food consumption management behavior, which indicated the high importance of this construct. The most indirect effect on behavior was related to the attitude variable. The perceived behavioral control in urban sample, like rural sample, had the highest effect on behavior. However, in rural sample, this variable, in addition to its direct effect, had an indirect effect through the mediating variable of intention of behavior, while the total causal effect of the perceived behavioral control in the urban sample had only direct effect on the behavior. In urban sample, like rural sample, the most significant effect after perceived behavioral control was related to attitude.