EATMOT Project: The study of eating motivations in different countries

• Main Author: Guiné, Raquel
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.19/5497
• topic: Food choice; Geographical influence; Health; Emotional eating

The EATMOT Project is a multinational study that is being carried out in 16 countries about different eating motivations, given their recognized importance in the definition of people’s dietary patterns. Eating is not only determined by physiology, but also by many other factors that interact in a complex way to shape individual eating habits. Hence, the aim of this project is to undertake a study about the different psychic and social motivations that determine people’s eating patterns, either in relation to their choices or eating habits. To do this, factors linked to food choices will be evaluated in the following main areas: health motivations; economic factors; emotional aspects; cultural influences; marketing and commercials or environmental concerns. The study is based on a questionnaire that was prepared purposely for the project, and therefore adequate to evaluate the aspects that determine the objectives highlighted. The countries involved are: Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal (Coordinator), Serbia, Slovenia, Romania and United States of America. From the obtained results so far it was possible to validate the EATMOT scale and to evaluate the influence of the sociodemographic variables on the studied eating motivations. Variables like age, marital status, country, living environment, level of education or professional area were found to importantly influence all the types of eating motivations analysed. Conversely, gender showed no significant effect on economic & availability as well as marketing & commercial motivations. Furthermore, ANN modelling indicated that the strongest positive influencers of the eating motivations were age for health, country for emotional, gender for economic & availability, country for social & cultural, country for environmental & political, and finally country also for the marketing & commercial motivations.