AbstractsMedical & Health Science

More studies are needed to analyse eating related behaviours due to the health and wellbeing related outcomes of unhealthy eating habits. In addition, choosing between multiple food items and different diets has become more complicated, because selection of foods available has increased. As a result, the importance of individual factors affecting food choices has increased. Individual factors that have found to be associated with food choices and food include gender and food choice motives. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the potential changes in food choice motives from the year 2007 to year 2014 between genders, and examine whether changes in food choice motives predict relative vegetable and fruit intake in 2014. Additionally, one aims was to test whether differences in changes in food choice motives mediate the gender differences in vegetable and fruit intake. This study is based on data from on-going population-based prospective study called DIetary, Lifestyle, and Genetic determinants of Obesity and Metabolic syndrome (DILGOM). DILGOM is a sub-study of national FINRISK study. The data was analysed with quantitative methods. The main findings of this study were: (a) the importance of ethicality and price motives increased but the importance of health and pleasure food choice motives decreased between years 2007 and 2014 in all participants, (b) the importance of ethicality motive was the only food choice motive that increased more in women than in men from 2007 to 2014. Female gender, being married and change in health and ethicality motive predicted higher vegetable and fruit intake in 2014. Furthermore, change in the importance of ethicality motive mediated partly the associations between gender and vegetable and fruit intake in 2014. As health and ethicality motives predicted higher use of vegetables and fruit, influencing to these motives could be used in promoting higher vegetable and fruit intake in the future. More precisely, if the target is to decrease the disparity of vegetable and fruit intake between genders, should the target be on increasing importance of ethicality motive for men in respect of the results of this study. More studies should be conducted to gain more information about this topic. The methods should be improved and widen in the future if more and more reliable information about the associations and trends in food choice motives and food choices are needed. Ruokavalintojen ja syömiseen liittyvän käyttäytymisen tutkiminen on erityisen tärkeää, koska ruokavalio liittyy terveyteen ja hyvinvointiin kokonaisvaltaisesti. Lisäksi ruokaan liittyvät valinnanmahdollisuudet ovat kasvaneet, koska ruokaa ja ruokavalikoimaa on jatkuvasti enemmän tarjolla. Näiden syiden vuoksi yksilön käyttäytymiseen liittyvät seikat ruoan valinnassa korostuvat. Yksilöllisiä tekijöitä, joiden on huomattu vaikuttavan syömiseen ja ruokavalintoihin, ovat esimerkiksi sukupuoli ja ruokavalintamotiivit. Tästä syystä tässä tutkimuksessa päädyttiin tutkimaan muutoksia, joita…