| Abstract [eng] |
Relevance of the topic. The development of sustainable food consumption behavior in the scientific literature was stimulated by climate change, human population, the standard of living and economic activity growth. The sustainable food consumption behavior topic is a new direction and also an important area for researchers that requires considerable attention because it has a connection with different disciplines such as economics, social sciences and ecology. Moreover, sustainable food consumption behaviors can be related to general sustainable consumption behaviors, but sustainable food consumption behavior is focused only on the food areas, such as purchasing of local, certified or eco-labeled products, food waste and repurchase. Because of that, researchers have more possibilities to deeper understand consumer purchasing manners, habits and attitudes. However, there has not been enough research done to define the determinants of sustainable food consumption behavior due to the novelty of the topic. Based on this approach, it is important to identify and investigate which factors contribute to a positive or negative influence on this behavior. This study is orientated into the three factors: a healthy lifestyle, attitudes toward health, and attitudes toward taste of food. Research object: Sustainable Food Consumption Behavior The aim of the work. To examine the influence of consumer healthy lifestyle, attitudes towards health and taste of food on sustainable food consumption behavior in the case of Lithuanian consumers. The main results of the research. First part of this research argues about the relevance which is based on the growing environmental problems and issues related to the insufficient development of the topic due to the novelty of the study. Second part of the thesis focuses on theory analysis, after which the multidimensionality of sustainable food consumption behaviour was determined. Furthermore, the determinants such as healthy lifestyle, attitude towards health and attitude towards food taste were found, which possibly influence the following dimensions: purchasing behaviour and post-purchasing behaviour. Third part of the paper is related to formation of a conceptual model, which depicts the connectivity between healthy lifestyle and sustainable food consumption behavior, between the three subscales (general health interest, light product interest, natural product interest) of attitude towards health and sustainable food consumption behavior, and the last one, between the three subscales (craving for sweet foods, using food as a reward, pleasure) of attitude towards food taste and sustainable food consumption behavior. In the fourth part, the relationships between the constructs which are depicted in the conceptual model are analyzed and the results of the quantitative study obtained after processing the data with the SPSS program are discussed. The fifth part presents the conclusions of this work, which revealed that the majority of Lithuanian consumers classify themselves to a drifter group which is inclined to buy sustainable foods, but their decision is determined by financial opportunities. The study also showed that the relationships and hypotheses which had been depicted in the conceptual model have only been validated between purchasing behavior and a healthy lifestyle, general health interest, natural product interest and craving for sweet foods. The influence of other factors on post-purchase behavior and the emerging dimension of sustainable food consumption "behavioral planning" has not been confirmed. It should be noted that statistically significant associations have been found between post-purchase behavior and general health interest, post-purchase behavior and self-rewarding food and also between behavioral planning and healthy living have. This means that this topic has to be researched deeper because of the factors which were not discussed in this work. At the end of the work, conclusions and recommendations for researchers and practitioners are presented. |
