Food Choices in the Context of Globalizing Food Options among Adolescents in Rural Southern India

ABSTRACT

Changes in food choice often accompany globalization and economic growth. These changes have not been well documented in rural settings and among young people. To advance research on food choice, we demonstrate adolescents’ selection of local vs.non-local foods in a rural area of India where globalization is just reaching. A representative sample of 237 school-going adolescents in a village in Southern India completed a survey in 2019 to understand how adolescents decide among foods traditional to the area and foods arriving from other parts of the country and the world. Adolescents most frequently consumed local foods but also occasionally consumed non-local items. In hypothetical scenarios, 81% of the adolescents reported being most interested in substituting local foods with non-local foods if they were to have more money. Among the few who currently consumed non-local snacks and drinks, very few would be willing to replace them with local alternatives, particularly if they were to have more money (snacks: 10% and drinks: 5% respectively). Overall, adolescents were most interested in switching to non-local items when considering fruits, vegetables and snacks. As India faces the dual burden of undernutrition and overnutrition, understanding the changing food environment may help inform efforts to improve nutrition.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• food intake
• Globalization
• India
• Nutrition transition

Acknowledgments

gThe authors thank Dr. Chandrika Doddihal and Mr. Manjunath Marad at BLDE (Deemed to be) University for assistance with instrument development and data collection and Dr. Veena Algur for translation of study materials; we are grateful to study participants and field team.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authorship

RJ and SC formulated the research question; SC,SP, AD, NIS, and RJ designed the study and analytic plan; RJ analyzed the data, with interpretive input from all authors; RJ drafted the manuscripts; all authors helped to revise the manuscript and approved the final version.

Data Availability Statement

Data available in the Harvard Dataverse within the Drivers of Food Choice (DFC) Dataverse entitled “DFC in the Context of Nutrition Transition in Indian Households- Vijayapura, India. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/dfc_indian_nutrition_transition

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the Drivers of Food Choice (DFC) Competitive Grants Program, which is funded by the UK Government’s Department for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and managed by the University of South Carolina, Arnold School of Public Health, USA; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK Government’s official policies.REJ was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Postdoctoral T32 Multidisciplinary Research Training to Reduce Inequities in Cardiovascular Health (grant number 5T32HL1300025). The funders had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article. This work was supported, in whole or in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation OPP#1110043. Under the grant conditions of the Foundation, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License has already been assigned to this Author Accepted Manuscript version that may arise from this submission