DETERMINANTS OF FOOD AWAY FROM HOME AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICANS

were surprised to find that price of food when eating out was ranked very low in African-American
consumers’ list of factors determining their decision to eat out. In terms of concerns that African-
American consumers had when eating out (Table 5), they were most concerned about poor ambience
(89.5% of the respondents ranked this as the most important concern) followed by poor quality-taste
(80.9%), too greasy food (78.3%) followed by poor service as the fourth most important concern (68%).

We were surprised to find that nutritional or healthy food aspect of food eaten away from home was
ranked very low among the African-American consumers (ranked in 6^th in Table 4). As mentioned
earlier, among all minority groups, African-Americans have the highest reported cases of obesity as
well as diabetes. Given such health problems among this minority group, their lack of concern
regarding food eaten away from is was surprising. It was perhaps due to low level of awareness or
complete disregard to the health facts related to FAFH food. In order to examine their knowledge
about the link between health and diet, we asked the respondents how strongly they believe that
there is a link between health and diet and certain diseases. Results are presented in Table 6. Results
show that a majority of the African-American respondents were aware of the link between health and
diet and diseases, particularly when it came to heart disease and diabetes. Given this information
about respondents’ awareness and knowledge, it is perhaps not surprising that most of the
respondents in this sample eat out only once or twice a month as opposed to more regularly.

IV. Conclusion

There is a plethora of studies focusing on FAFH by American consumers. However, there are very few
studies that focus exclusively on African-Americans. This study tries to fill that gap. Given the
emphasis on health and nutrition in general and relating to food consumption in particular, this study’s

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