Socioeconomic factors have been investigated and found to have a considerable influence on the food choices made by people. While it is often normal for those who are well off and educated to deride those who are less fortunate, it is often forgotten that you should not comment on another person’s circumstances until you have walked a day in their shoes. University students for example are generally educated individuals, yet their food choices are often downgraded when they leave home to live alone, and this can almost alway be attributed to wealth. Social mobility also plays a significant role, as those without a car are faced with the choice of shopping locally or using public transport, the latter often being relatively expensive for society’s poorest. Many therefore choose to shop locally, which in some cases limits access to healthier food choices. Such socioeconomic factors surrounding nutrition have been extensively reported and reviewed elsewhere, and have been shown to significantly affect long term health.
The poorest in society also tend to be the least financially literate and as a result price is often the main determinant of shopping habits. However, given the choice between cheap healthy food and cheap less healthy food, the likelihood of purchasing the less healthy food is higher. For example, researchers1 assessed the shopping habits of just over 25,000 households in the United Kingdom and used regression analysis to analyse the correlation between price promotion and purchasing habits. From this a stronger association was found between discounted prices and purchases of less healthy food compared to more healthy foods. Given the same discount on both healthy and less healthy foods, households were more likely to choose the less healthy food. The authors concluded that limiting more healthy foods to discount might encourage more purchases of higher quality foods. This supports previous studies that show people will eat healthier foods if it is accessible, affordable, and the temptation of low quality foods is limited.
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