Unhealthful diets are strongly linked to health problems, including obesity, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Past efforts to improve population diet centered on conveying the importance of nutrition and nutrition knowledge. This study examines if the effect of the knowledge of specific nutrient’s function on dietary behavior is mediated by motivation towards better health. Survey data used in this study was obtained via a web-panel survey that was conducted by Ipsos-Observer. We employed the mediation analysis method that is established in the literature. We find that motivation mediates the influence of the knowledge of nutrients’ function on dietary behaviors. Individuals with high health-motivation and higher levels of the knowledge of nutrients’ dietary functions exhibit healthier dietary behaviors than individuals with low-health motivation but high levels of nutrients’ functional knowledge. Furthermore, individuals with health problems exhibited higher motivation to maintain healthy diet. A key implication is that efforts to promote healthy dietary behaviors should consider motivation in addition to providing tools, such as nutrients’ functional knowledge and nutrition labels. Simply conveying the importance of nutrition itself may not be enough to motivate people to affect diet changes. Educating about the specific role of nutrients’ in human health might motivate more individuals to modify diet.
| Published in | Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences (Volume 9, Issue 1) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11 |
| Page(s) | 1-9 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Diet Behavior, Nutrients’ Dietary Function, Motivation, Nutrition, Diet
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APA Style
Michael Lindbloom, Jebaraj Asirvatham, Wanki Moon, Ira Altman. (2021). Motivation Mediates the Influence of the Knowledge of Nutrients’ Function on Diet. Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences, 9(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11
ACS Style
Michael Lindbloom; Jebaraj Asirvatham; Wanki Moon; Ira Altman. Motivation Mediates the Influence of the Knowledge of Nutrients’ Function on Diet. J. Food Nutr. Sci. 2021, 9(1), 1-9. doi: 10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11
AMA Style
Michael Lindbloom, Jebaraj Asirvatham, Wanki Moon, Ira Altman. Motivation Mediates the Influence of the Knowledge of Nutrients’ Function on Diet. J Food Nutr Sci. 2021;9(1):1-9. doi: 10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11
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Download@article{10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11,
author = {Michael Lindbloom and Jebaraj Asirvatham and Wanki Moon and Ira Altman},
title = {Motivation Mediates the Influence of the Knowledge of Nutrients’ Function on Diet},
journal = {Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences},
volume = {9},
number = {1},
pages = {1-9},
doi = {10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.jfns.20210901.11},
abstract = {Unhealthful diets are strongly linked to health problems, including obesity, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Past efforts to improve population diet centered on conveying the importance of nutrition and nutrition knowledge. This study examines if the effect of the knowledge of specific nutrient’s function on dietary behavior is mediated by motivation towards better health. Survey data used in this study was obtained via a web-panel survey that was conducted by Ipsos-Observer. We employed the mediation analysis method that is established in the literature. We find that motivation mediates the influence of the knowledge of nutrients’ function on dietary behaviors. Individuals with high health-motivation and higher levels of the knowledge of nutrients’ dietary functions exhibit healthier dietary behaviors than individuals with low-health motivation but high levels of nutrients’ functional knowledge. Furthermore, individuals with health problems exhibited higher motivation to maintain healthy diet. A key implication is that efforts to promote healthy dietary behaviors should consider motivation in addition to providing tools, such as nutrients’ functional knowledge and nutrition labels. Simply conveying the importance of nutrition itself may not be enough to motivate people to affect diet changes. Educating about the specific role of nutrients’ in human health might motivate more individuals to modify diet.},
year = {2021}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Motivation Mediates the Influence of the Knowledge of Nutrients’ Function on Diet AU - Michael Lindbloom AU - Jebaraj Asirvatham AU - Wanki Moon AU - Ira Altman Y1 - 2021/01/18 PY - 2021 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11 DO - 10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11 T2 - Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences JF - Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences JO - Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-7293 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jfns.20210901.11 AB - Unhealthful diets are strongly linked to health problems, including obesity, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Past efforts to improve population diet centered on conveying the importance of nutrition and nutrition knowledge. This study examines if the effect of the knowledge of specific nutrient’s function on dietary behavior is mediated by motivation towards better health. Survey data used in this study was obtained via a web-panel survey that was conducted by Ipsos-Observer. We employed the mediation analysis method that is established in the literature. We find that motivation mediates the influence of the knowledge of nutrients’ function on dietary behaviors. Individuals with high health-motivation and higher levels of the knowledge of nutrients’ dietary functions exhibit healthier dietary behaviors than individuals with low-health motivation but high levels of nutrients’ functional knowledge. Furthermore, individuals with health problems exhibited higher motivation to maintain healthy diet. A key implication is that efforts to promote healthy dietary behaviors should consider motivation in addition to providing tools, such as nutrients’ functional knowledge and nutrition labels. Simply conveying the importance of nutrition itself may not be enough to motivate people to affect diet changes. Educating about the specific role of nutrients’ in human health might motivate more individuals to modify diet. VL - 9 IS - 1 ER -
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