The existing literature is limited on examining the relationship between consumer health awareness
and their FAFH decisions for the general population as well for African-Americans. For instance, these
studies do not address questions such as, “does awareness about diet and health alter African-
American consumers’ FAFH decisions or is such awareness suppressed by other situational factors (e.g.,
convenience) that may be more important at the time of consumption?” An attempt will be made here
to examine such a question in terms of the diet and health awareness of African-Americans and how
such awareness relates to their FAFH consumption decisions.
Despite the link between diet and health and the consequence of poor diet on African-Americans, the
FAFH literature is silent on FAFH behavior by African-Americans. There are numerous studies on FAFH
consumption behaviors but they are focused mainly on the overall population, majority of which is
Caucasian (e.g., Byrne, Capps, and Saha, 1996; Bhuyan, 2005; Stewart et al., 2004). Those studies that
examine minority’s food (and non food) consumption behavior (e.g. Paulin, 2000; and Milley, 1987) are
based either on secondary data which most part are too general to draw inference for minority’s food
consumption behavior, or are not focused on minority’s FAFH, or are not focused on African-
Americans. Few other studies focus on health and nutrition (e.g., Byrne, Capps, and Saha; Acharya, et
al., 2002; Stewart, et al.) are also focused on the general population to draw any conclusion regarding
African-American population. This article is an attempt to contribute to the literature as well as to
provide a better understanding of FAFH behavior by African-Americans.
The principal objectives of this study, therefore, are (i) to examine the consumption behavior of
African-Americans for FAFH and their knowledge and attitude towards health and nutrition, (ii) to
examine the nature of such demand among different African-American consumer groups (economic
and demographic groups), and (iii) to identify the determinants of African-American consumers’ FAFH