IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03584039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Food consumption knowledge and habits in a developing country: a case of Lebanon

Author

Listed:
  • Nada Mallah Boustani

    (USJ - Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth)

  • Manuela Ferreira

    (Polytechnic Institute of Viseu)

  • Raquel P F Guiné

    (Polytechnic Institute of Viseu)

Abstract

This research work investigated the Lebanese consumers' knowledge about food fibre and their food habits according to age groups and gender. The study was conducted from January 2021 till end of March 2021. Due to the pandemic of Covid-19 and the lockdown, the questionnaire was administered randomly through social media. The survey consisted of a longitudinal study carried out on a non-probabilistic convenience sample of 258 Lebanese participants. The responses were used to undertake a quantitative, descriptive and analytical study. The questionnaires received and considered valid, were mostly from women (59.7%) and essentially living in an urban environment (78.3%). To analyse the data, basic descriptive statistics were considered on a first level. Additionally, statistical tests were also carried out (Student t test for comparisons between two groups). Finally, results and analysis were done to evaluate the importance of food knowledge among these people in addition to their eating habits and the possible gender differences. The results revealed that there are some gender inequalities (F=6.238, α= 0.0013) in terms of knowledge about food fibre, but no living environment differences were found (F=0.36, α=0.85). Additionally, consumption habits showed major differences between female and male food behaviour, especially when it comes to eating: the frequency of eating outside from home, eating fast food and consuming fruits. The value of this study focuses on the food knowledge and habits in Lebanon, specifically in a country defined by a multi-ethnical diversity and religiosity and where food habits were mainly related to social behaviour. Therefore, this study adds more knowledge about these people's food behaviour and valuable information about specific food attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Nada Mallah Boustani & Manuela Ferreira & Raquel P F Guiné, 2021. "Food consumption knowledge and habits in a developing country: a case of Lebanon," Post-Print hal-03584039, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03584039
    DOI: 10.9770/IRD.2021.3.4(5)
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03584039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-03584039/document
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.9770/IRD.2021.3.4(5)?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lebanese consumers; social behaviour; eating habits; food knowledge; fast food; food fibre;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03584039. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.