HSN713 Assignment 1: Analyzing Food Choice and Health Belief Model

This report critically examines the Health Belief Model (HBM) and its application to understanding human food choices. The analysis begins with an overview of the HBM, outlining its components such as perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers, and how these factors influence health beh...Read More

Running head: FOOD NUTRITION AND BEHAVIOR1
Food Nutrition and Behavior
Name
Institutional Affiliation

FOOD NUTRITION AND BEHAVIOR2
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
The Health Belief Model and its components.................................................................................3
Advantages and limitations of the HBM theory..............................................................................5
Comparisons of Health Behavior Theories......................................................................................6
Determinants of Food Choices........................................................................................................7
Cultural Model of Food Choice.......................................................................................................8
Criticisms of the Cultural Model of Food Choice.........................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Food Nutrition and Behavior
Introduction
With the current world trends, more and more people are carrying researches on different
aspects of everyday life with the aim of understanding them better and one such aspect is health-
related fields like health psychology. Hence, research in this area is done with the main objective
is gaining an understanding of reasons why individuals perform some certain health behaviors.
One way of gaining such deep understanding concerning human health behavior is through
creating and testing out HealthBehaviour Theories which include the Health Belief Model, the
Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (3). These theories are sometimes
referred to as continuum theories since they mainly have the objective to discover variables
which have an effect on human health behaviors and use these combined variables to anticipate
how likely the individual is to engage in specific human health behavior.The Health Belief
Model (HBM)is one of the earliest frameworks that was used to understand human behavior. It is
a theory in psychology which makes the attempt to justify, by giving an explanation and make
predictions to human behavior in regards to health. Therefore it can be said that the theory
describes and anticipates change to individual human health behavior (2). Therefore this essay
will critiques the HBM and also formulate and asses a new model of food choice.
The Health Belief Model and its components.
The HBM is a theory that was created in the 1950s at the United States Public Health
Service by social scientists,Houghbaum, G.M., Becker, M.H., Rosenstock, I.M. and Stretcher,
V.J, who wanted to have an understanding as to why people fail to pick up strategies for disease
prevention or to screen for diseases so that they can be detected early. They developed the theory
after a free screening for tuberculosis failed (3). As the theory makes an attempt to explain and

FOOD NUTRITION AND BEHAVIOR4
anticipate individual health behavior, it does so by looking at the individual’s beliefs, values, and
attitudes. The theory originally was of the idea thatwhen an individual finds out about a serious
health risk or feel in danger personally and believe that the preventative actions taken outweigh
the dangers associated with the risk, they will take the necessary steps to prevent the risk.
However, the theory keeps on evolving to keep up with the current times as health behaviors
keep on changing and it was updated in the 1980s (8).
The HBM theory was gotten from psychological and behavioral theories and it believes
that human healthbehaviors are comprised of three assumptions i.e. the desire of individuals to
avoid being sick and if they are already sick to recover and secondly, it holds the belief that
when some certain things are done it will prevent or have a cure for an illness (4). Finally, that
individuals can successfully take a health action that has been recommended. The HBM is
comprised of a variety of theoretical constructs which help prove and support the theory
especially during research. The first four tenets or factors were developed as the theory was
originally being formulated and they were supposed to account for people being ready to act
while the last two came as the theory was updated. The first one has perceived susceptibility
which refers to an individual's personal opinion or understanding of the risks associated with
getting a disease or illness and even getting infected in the first place. However, an individual’s
own personal feelings about being susceptible to a disease widely vary for individuals (13).
The next construct perceived severity which refers to how an individual feels about how
serious it is to get infected with an illness or if they already have it how serious it is to leave an
illness untreated. Hence it basically refers to opinions individuals have concerning the
seriousness of a disease and its consequences that is the condition is serious enough to have
negative effects. An individual’s opinion about severity often widely vary and most medical and

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social consequences are put into consideration when assessing severity. Thirdly is the perceived
benefits. This construct refers to how individuals' views how effective different actions are
available when reducing the consequences and threat of an illness. The different actions that are
people are able to use in the reduction of the risks of getting ill or curing a disease depends on
the scrutiny and assessing both the perceived susceptibility and perceived (14). A good example
is whereby a question has raised the question of whether an individual would readily accept
health actions that are recommended when it is viewed as having benefits.
Next is perceived barriers which are the opinion of a person about the hindrances against
the advised course of action being done and these hindrances can be tangible and or
psychological. The level of an individual's views on these obstacles can greatly differ and thus
results in a cost/benefit assessment whereby the individual weighs how effective the
behaviorsare when pitted against the view that it could be dangerous, inconvenient, expensive or
time-consuming (6). It is followed by the two latest additions to the constructs of the HBM
theory. Next is the cue to action which is where a cue or stimulus is present and thus triggers the
process of choosing an option thus leading to acceptance of the endorsed health action. The
stimulus can either be external or internal. Finally is self-efficacy which is simply put is how
confident an individual is in terms of their ability to do an act with success. It was added in the
1980s and this construct is the same across various theories of behavior since it correlates
directly to if the person does the recommended action or not (14).
Advantages and limitations of the HBM theory.
Some of the advantages of this theory include; first, the theory is quite straightforward
and thus are intuitively attractive to healthcare services providers. Since there theory is that it
seems without need to find deeper meaning, health service providers find themselves applying it

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in their daily activities. Also, there is a lot of research and therefore literature when it comes to
this theory (1). The existence of this means that when an individual carries out research with this
theory in mind it will be easy for them. Most theories have limitations and criticisms and the
HBM is the same as it has a variety of them. First, the theory tends to come off as believing in
blaming the victim. Since the main tenets of the theory argue for personal responsibility when
desired actions are taken, when anything goes wrong the individual has to take responsibility
thus blaming the victim making them think it's their own fault they have health issues (12).
The second one is that it can be quite hard to find cues of triggers that have a meaning to
the action since times keep on changing. As time changes it means triggers to do certain action
changes with it. Next, this model fully focuses on the difference of people beliefs and attitudes in
regards to human health behaviors but does not consider factors such as environment which
affects human health behaviors and whether or not they promote the recommended action. Also,
it does not consider that some individual possesses habitual behaviors which may affect the
decision-making process when deciding whether to perform the recommended action.The theory
also makes the assumption each individual has equal and unlimited access to the information on
a certain illness which will help inform their decision (20).
Comparisons of Health Behavior Theories.
The HBM theory can be compared to a few other theories that explain behavior. First is
in terms of ideology. The HBM theory is meant to try and anticipate and explain certain health
behavior while the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour
(TPB) tries to explain and predict what the intention of a specific action is (11). Next
comparison comes in terms of how behavior is changed within the theory. In HBM, for an
individual to make a decision about doing the recommended action they should feel threatened

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by the disease to the extent that they carry out an assessment of their cost and benefits. On the
other hand, TRA/TPB makes the assumption through formulating a hypothesis that the actions
and behaviors can be determined by its intention (11).
Determinants of Food Choices.
Food Choice is basically the process through which human being make a decision on
what kind of food they should eat. Different theories and factors affect this decision-making
process when choosing food to consume. The most common model across the board is the HBM
theory which almost everyone chooses, however, there are other alternatives which guide people
in deciding what to consume (19). First is taste preferences, here individuals decide on what food
to take in regards to how they look and taste. Most people depend on how the food looks to
determine if it is edible and then to actually taste it out for the same purpose. Individuals have a
variety of tastes depending on such factors as where they were brought up when deciding what
kind of food to consume and it mostly affects spontaneous food choices (1).
Also, another factor that determines food choice is marketing. Most producers of various
types of food invest heavily on the use of adverts to entice viewers to decide to choose and eat
their food. Mostly this is the fact with producers of unhealthy food who make it look fun to
consume their products by doing such things as placing prizes and toys for people to find. Hence
this affects the type of food an individual consumes (6). Next is where an individual is hungry
and they want to satiate it. When an individual feels hunger the logical thing to do is to satisfy it
by consuming food and thus they are able to gain nutrients from the consumed food (5). Hunger,
therefore, makes an individual seek for food and in the process, they decide which type of food
will get rid of the hunger faster.

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Another determinant of food choice is the family and living situation of the individual
meant to make the decision. Some people get to eat whatever is prepared for them hence their
decision has been made by the individual preparing the food for them. It can be seen clearly
whereby children eat what their parents decide they can (18). Next, is is the level of education.
Research done of this issue has discovered that the type of food chosen and dietary behavior by
an individual in their adulthood is directly affected by the level of education. Another
determinant is cultural and social meanings. This point can be explained as a situation whereby
people consume food or choose a type of food because they have good memories of it which are
comforting to them. These foods may not necessarily add nutritional value but they will opt for
this food since it brings them happiness (15). Also, food choice can be determined by the social
class of an individual. People on top of the social class tend to afford to eat as much as they want
since they can afford it but the consequence of this is that it can lead to such lifestyle diseases
like obesity while those at the bottom with little money eat what they can afford leading to such
conditions like malnutrition. These determinants are not included in the HBM theory but they are
important as well. They are important since the food environment is ever evolving, when the
HBM theory was formulated it was in the 1950s and 1980s and therefore the food environment
has changed. Therefore these other determinants cover these changes in the food environment as
a result of factors such as globalization and the agricultural environment (9). Also, different
diseases and issues have come up like obesity and climate change have also influenced the food
environment. Hence these determinants can explain these different arising issues in the food
environment (16).

FOOD NUTRITION AND BEHAVIOR9
Cultural Model of Food Choice.
The two ideas of culture and food are a world apart in terms of their ideology and
concepts but they, however, relate to each other really well. Growing up individuals had a very
definitive culture which influences aspects of their life and how they live such as beliefs,
attitudes, adopted traditions and also what type of food they choose to consume. People make
choices about what food they want to consume in their everyday lives based on several
determinants such as culture, therefore, diversifying food choice (4). Across the world, people
are increasingly expressing their culture with their food choices and also experiencing the
diverse cultures across the world using food as a medium. Therefore these various cultures
across the world express their cultural diversity through food through different ways such as how
they eat, how it is cooked, how it is served and other aspects which all come together to help
people make their choices on food. Culture, therefore, remains the greatest and most dominant
determinant of food choices across the world today and has immensely shaped the world’s food
choices (7).
With this model, it will explain how culture affects people when they are making food
choices and if other factors affect culture so that it can influence food choices in a specific
manner. Daily people consume some type of food and it would not be possible without people
who have made and prepared the food. Those who prepare the food have also been influenced by
culture in one way or the other. Many cultures differ in how they prepare food and thus people
will have a variety of options to choose from without interfering with their beliefs. In India, most
people opt to not eat beef or any products from a cow since it is considered holy which is
different from other parts of the world who do not have the same values (15). Therefore

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companies like McDonald’s offer a menu that is tailor-made for that society and is inline with
their culture thus giving them options to choose from when making food choices.
Also, in France and other European countries, snails are a common cuisine eaten by the
citizens in the country however when it comes to countries like Kenya they find it revolting since
it is not in their culture to consume such products. This results in many restaurants in Europe
offering it on their menu, therefore, making it easier for those who have a cultural significance
have a choice in the food they consume (17). The final example in most landlocked countries it is
pretty rare for them to consume seafood such as crabs since they have no access to hence not part
of their culture in comparison to countries who have coastlines it will be found that seafood has
been incorporated into traditional cultural food. All in all this model hopes to promote cultural
diversity through having a variety of food choices (10).

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Essentially what this model explains is that there are various aspects of culture in
individual’s lives and these elements all affect food choice for them. These various elements are
affected by variables referred to as moderating variables which means the variables influence
how strong the relationship between food choice and the aspects of culture are. One example of a
moderating variable in the figure above is the environment which can affect our taboos and
different rituals. The environment can influence the taboos of an individual towards a certain
food choice by changing their point of view on it and rationalizing the decision about why it is
not wrong to consume the food (10). Basically, it is the theory of cognitive dissonance at its best.
Criticisms of the Cultural Model of Food Choice.
Although the aim is to come up with perfect theory there is no one theory that has no
faults, therefore, similarly, this theory has some criticism. The first one is that not everyone will
appreciate having to choose food from other people’s culture since they are rigid and want to
keep their own cultural food intact. They feel that by having this variety it is a way of losing your
own culture by embracing other cultures. Another criticism is it is quite hard to judge the quality
of other people’s food from the outside since you belong to a different culture. Therefore this
means that you do not know what to expect from it. Hence it makes people not want to make
food choices due to fear of offending people (16).
Another critique of the model is that since people depend on their own version of culture
in terms of food choice, they face an issue when it comes to interpreting other cultures since
some people believe that the culture is similar to there and by assuming this they may end up
hurting people from other cultures. Also, people may misjudge people based on their culture and
food choices. People are judgemental by nature and even if they do not criticize you in person

FOOD NUTRITION AND BEHAVIOR12
they may decide to view you in some kind of way thanks to the food choice you made. It is
wrong to generalize even if people come from the same culture everyone will be diverse in their
own way.
Conclusion.
All in all, people have to make decisions about what kind of food to consume daily since
food is essential in human development. Previously one of the models that have been commonly
used to try and explain reasons given for making some food choices is the Health Belief Model.
The model basically states that people choose some types of food because of fear of the
consequences to their health or with the aim of getting better. However with postmodernism
today, many people do not respond to fear which the HBM employs the rather respond to having
a feeling of belonging to something. Therefore my model is better since people will feel good
appreciating their own culture through foo, therefore, having a sense of being one with their
culture. Hence this model should be adopted since it is the current phenomenon.

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