Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

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Appetite
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Research report

Consumption of organic and functional food. A matter of well-being

and health?
Beate Goetzke *, Sina Nitzko, Achim Spiller
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development Marketing of Food and Agricultural Products, Georg-August University of Goettingen, Platz
der Gttinger Sieben 5, 37073 Goettingen, Germany

A R T I C L E

I N F O

Article history:
Received 19 October 2012
Received in revised form 6 February 2014
Accepted 21 February 2014
Available online 13 March 2014
Keywords:
Organic food
Functional food
Consumption
Well-being
Health
Social desirability

A B S T R A C T

Health is an important motivation for the consumption of both organic and functional foods. The aim of
this study was to clarify to what extent the consumption of organic and functional foods are characterized by a healthier lifestyle and a higher level of well-being. Moreover, the inuence of social desirability on the respondents response behavior was of interest and was also analyzed. Well-being and health
was measured in a sample of 555 German consumers at two levels: the cognitive-emotional and the behavioral level. The results show that although health is an important aspect for both functional food and
organic food consumption, these two forms of consumption were inuenced by different understandings of health: organic food consumption is inuenced by an overall holistic healthy lifestyle including a
healthy diet and sport, while functional food consumption is characterized by small adjustments to lifestyle to enhance health and to increase psychological well-being. An overlap between the consumption
of organic and functional food was also observed. This study provides information which enables a better
characterization of the consumption of functional food and organic food in terms of well-being and health.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Health is becoming an increasingly important personal and societal value. Due to the costs that are associated with curative medicine, the prevention of health problems occurring in the rst place
is very important. A substantial proportion of health complaints are
categorized as civilization-related diseases and could be prevented by a healthier lifestyle. Besides physical activity, adequate
nutrition is an essential aspect in inuencing a persons health status
(Altgeld et al., 2006). Consumers have started to understand that
their food choices may have consequences for their health and are
paying more attention to the health benets of food to maintain a
healthy lifestyle (Bachl, 2007; Chrysochou, 2010; Pech-Lopatta, 2007).
Functional food addresses this issue by offering food that can positively affect peoples health. Various scientic publications have
shown that health is an important motivation for functional food
consumption (see Bech-Larsen & Grunert, 2003; Chen, 2011a; Diplock
et al., 1999; Niva & Mkel, 2007; Szakly, Szente, Kvr, Polereczki,
& Szigeti, 2012). Typical functional food products are those enriched with substances such as probiotics, prebiotics or omega-3 fatty
acids. In the present study, we have adhered to the broadly accepted denition of functional food by Diplock et al. (1999) which
states that

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bgoetzke@uni-goettingen.de (B. Goetzke).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.02.012
0195-6663/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

a food can be regarded as functional if it is satisfactorily demonstrated to affect benecially one or more target functions in
the body, beyond adequate nutritional effects, in a way that is
relevant to [. . .] an improved state of health and well-being.
Poulsen (1999) has presented an even broader denition of functional food, specifying four categories of its production: (a) upgrading; i.e. enhancement by adding a substance which is already present
in the product; (b) substitution; i.e. substituting a component with
a similar, but healthier substance; (c) enrichment; i.e. adding a substance not present in the basic product; and (d) elimination; i.e. removing an unhealthy component. In accordance with Diplock et al.
(1999), tablet-like foods do not comply with the denition of functional food in this paper, and functional foods need to be food like
yoghurt or margarine with an additional health benet.
Another kind of food that is usually perceived as being healthy
and fullls the criterion as being better for me (Pech-Lopatta, 2007)
is organic food. Various studies show the importance of environmental factors or concerns about animal welfare as motives for the
consumption of organic food (Davies, Titterington, & Cochrane, 1995;
Harper & Makatouni, 2002; Hughner, McDonagh, Prothero, Shultz,
& Stanton, 2007; Lea & Worsley, 2005; Torjusen, Lieblein, Wandel,
& Francis, 2001). However, Magnusson, Arvola, Hursti, Aberg, and
Sjoden (2003) come to the conclusion that egoistic motives like
health concerns are more important for the consumption of organic
food than the mentioned altruistic motives. Various empirical studies
have underlined the signicance of health as a motivating factor for
the consumption of organic food in general (Baker, Thompson,

B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

Engelken, & Huntley, 2004; Chen, 2009; De Magistris & Gracia, 2008;
Gracia & de Magistris, 2008; Haghiri, Hobbs, & McNamara, 2009;
Hughner et al., 2007; Lea & Worsley, 2005; Mondelaers, Verbeke,
& van Huylenbroeck, 2009; Padel & Foster, 2005; Schifferstein & Oude
Ophuis, 1998). Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies that focus in
detail on different health-related aspects and health behaviors as
predictors for the consumption of organic food.
The theoretical and empirical evidence presented above supports the rationale that for both functional and organic food types,
health is a crucial consumption motive. This study develops a more
multidimensional and differentiated view of factors associated with
the consumption of functional food and organic food. Behavioral and
cognitive-emotional aspects of well-being and health are taken into
consideration that may be connected to increasing levels of organic
or functional food consumption. This paper therefore represents a
novel departure from other contemporary organic and functional
food studies, as we have analyzed both forms of consumption using
the same variables. Accordingly, it is possible to compare the associations with the different health-related variables of organic and
functional food. For this purpose, 685 German consumers were interviewed regarding their consumption of these types of food, their
level of well-being, and their health behavior (providing 555 valid
responses).
Methodology
Procedure and sample
The study was carried out in two stages. First, a pretest with 40
randomly selected consumers recruited from an online access panel
was conducted to improve the quality of the statements, which had
been translated from English into German. The pretest showed that
some of the statements were not fully understood and needed to
be adjusted. In addition, by means of a conrmatory factor analysis, the entire item set was reduced, and the most highly loaded items
were identied. The pretest also proved the assumption of social
desirability of some well-being statements.
Social desirability describes the tendency of a person to deny traits
that are socially undesirable and to claim social desirable traits. It
also includes the bias to say things that sheds a good light on the
person making the statement (Atteslander & Kneubhler, 1975). A
large number of empirical studies indicate an association between
reports of well-being and social desirability (Braja-ganec, Ivanovic,
& Lipovcan, 2011; Fastame & Penna, 2013; Kozmna & Stones, 1987;
Lawal, 2008). Because of our suspicion that the answers of some
items of the Perceived Wellness Survey (PWS) could be inuenced
by social desirability, we decided to include questions to measure
the presence of social desirability.
In the second stage, a total of 685 German consumers were surveyed. The participants were recruited and randomly selected by
an online access panel provider. To ensure a nationally representative sample, we used gender, age, and income quotas reecting
the composition of the German population. The sample included
349 female (51%) and 336 male (49%) participants; 71% were over
40 years old and 29% under 40 years old. They ranged in age from
14 to 85 years with a mean age of 48.76 (standard deviation 15.63).
Table 1 describes the characteristics of the participants by gender,
age, and monthly household net income in comparison to the entire
German population.
Measures
According to the World Health Organization, health is more than
the absence of illness and disability: it is a state of well-being (World
Health Organization, 1986). Health is characterized by multidimensionality, and its construct includes physical, social, emotional,

95

Table 1
Sample description.
Characteristics

Gender
Male
Female
Age
Under 20 years
2140 years
4160 years
61 years and over
Monthly household net income
Less than 900
9011500
15012600
More than 2601
No answer

Overall sample
(n = 685)

Populationa

Percent

Percent

336
349

49
51

49
51

54
147
259
225

8
21
38
33

4
29
35
32

54
136
225
219
51

8
21
36
34

13
24
32
31

a Source: German Federal Oce for Statistics (Statistisches Bundesamt [German

Federal Oce of Statistics, 2011).

mental, spiritual, and behavioral aspects from the subjective view

of an individual (Schumacher, Klaiberg, & Brhler, 2003). In order
to reduce the complexity of this construct, well-being was recognized at two levels in this study. In line with the denition of Schumacher et al. (2003), we have distinguished between a behavioral level
and a cognitive-emotional level. The latter includes all aspects (social,
psychological, physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual) that
are not directly related to behavior.
The cognitive-emotional level of well-being and health
To assess the cognitive-emotional level of well-being and health,
the Perceived Wellness Survey from Adams, Bezner, and Steinhardt
(1997) was used. This survey includes the same basic dimensions
of wellness as other wellness measures (e.g. Ardell, 1977; Hettler,
1980; Travis & Ryan, 2004). It was developed on scientic foundations such as the Medical Outcomes Survey-36 from Ware and
Sherbourne (1992) and the Existential Well-Being Scale from
Paloutzian and Ellison (1982), and has been empirically validated
(Adams, Bezner, Garner, & Woodruff, 1998; Harari, Waehler, & Rogers,
2005). The Perceived Wellness Survey measures perceptual rather
than clinical, physiological, or behavioral variables (Adams et al.,
1998). The questionnaire is divided into six separate subscales: physical, spiritual, psychological, social, emotional, and intellectual wellness. Each subscale includes six items measuring self-reported
wellness. Higher scores indicate a higher perceived well-being.
The physical wellness dimension primarily aims to positively
assess physical health and its perception. The key aspect of spiritual wellness is a positive perception of the meaning of ones life
and purposeful living. Psychological wellness represents optimism and positive life expectations in an individuals life, while the
emotional wellness dimension addresses self-esteem. Social wellness is characterized by being supported by family or friends,
whereas the intellectual wellness dimension assesses the amount
of mental and intellectual activity.
As reviews of the literature have shown that occupational wellness is an important aspect for wellness (Miller & Foster, 2010;
Roscoe, 2009), we added occupational wellness items from the Lifestyle Assessment Questionnaire from Hettler (1980). In general, occupational wellness is dened as the level of satisfaction and
enrichment gained by ones work and the extent to which ones occupation allows for the expression of ones values (Roscoe, 2009,
p. 221). Each item was rated on a six-point Likert-type rating scale,
ranging from very strongly disagree to very strongly agree.

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B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

Behavioral level of well-being and health

This level of well-being and health is understandable as health
behavior. Gochman (1997) denes it as those behavior patterns,
actions and habits that relate to health maintenance, to health restoration and health improvement (p. 3). The usage of medical services, the compliance with medical regimes as well as self-directed
health behaviors are all included in this denition. Besides the direct
effects of health behaviors (e.g. healthy or unhealthy diet), mediating effects on health have to be taken into consideration as healthrelated behaviors can reduce, strengthen or modify the effects of
stress and emotions on the processes of health and disease (Baum
& Posluszny, 1999). Our study concentrated on the self-directed
health behaviors specied by the denition of Gochman (1997).
In contrast to the cognitive-emotional level of well-being and
health, there is no model that clearly denes the behaviors belonging to the behavioral level of well-being and health. Furthermore,
no standardized item battery could be identied from the
literature that was suitable for our research questions. As a consequence, we combined different item batteries to measure the selfdirected health behaviors. We focused on beauty activities (Goetzke
& Spiller, 2014), relaxation activities (Goetzke & Spiller, 2014), social
community wellness (Hettler, 1998), health care behavior (Hettler,
1998), risk behavior (adapted from Hettler, 1998), stress control
(Anspaugh, Hamrick, & Rosate, 2009), drug/tobacco and caffeine use
(Hettler, 1998), and sport activity. These items were designed specically for this study. Furthermore, we included eating behavior
because of the validated associations between health-related nutritional orientation and the consumption of functional food (Niva,
2007) and organic food (Lockie, Lyons, Lawrence, & Mummery, 2002;
Schifferstein & Oude Ophuis, 1998). We also selected items from the
scales Consumption of healthy, low-fat food and Appreciation of
healthy nutrition that belong to a statement battery by Diehl (2002).
All the items were displayed with a six-point Likert scale
containing the options very strongly disagree to very strongly
agree, or (almost) never to (almost) always, depending on the
statement.
As there was no model that clearly dened the facets of the behavioral level of well-being and health, we used an explorative approach. The statistical method of factor analysis was then applied
to test the aliation of the created factors to the behavioral level.
Food consumption
Two different question types were used to measure the respondents functional and organic food consumption. We asked them
about their general food consumption within the last six months
and also about their consumption of certain organic food groups or
certain functional food groups. The latter foods were categorized
according to Diplock et al. (1999) and Poulsen (1999), i.e. functional food in a broad sense. Accordingly, we asked the respondents about
their consumption frequency of functional food categories (e.g. wellness akes/muesli, probiotic milk products), rather than about products of a special brand or producer. Before the presentation of the
items concerning the frequency of consumption of functional foods,
respondents were informed by an introduction text about the nature
of functional foods. We informed them that the following statements refer to food that promises to bring an additional health
benet, e.g. by additional vitamins. Furthermore, we gave some examples of the health effects of functional foods (e.g. strengthening
of heart and blood vessels, combating free radicals, supporting digestion, improving intestinal health, reducing cholesterol level). We
also added the information that the word functional food (or its
German translation) is common for these kinds of foods, as many
consumers do not know this term. We also presented some pictures of known functional foods for illustration.

Concerning general consumption of organic food and functional food, the question was How often have you eaten organic food/
foods with additional health benets during the last 6 months?,
with answering options on a six-point Likert scale as follows: once
a week or more, twice a month, once a month, once every 23
months, once every 46 months, rarely, never/I dont eat it.
For organic food consumption, we included questions on eight
product groups. The respondents answered the questions on a sixpoint Likert scale from 1 = never/I dont eat this to 6 = always.
Likewise, the functional food consumption was divided into 12
categories.
Social desirability
There are various methods of controlling the level of social desirability in surveys. Because of our suspicion that the answering
of some items of the Perceived Wellness Survey could be inuenced by social desirability, we decided to include a questionnaire
to measure the extent of social desirability. Therefore, the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) short scale (Winkler,
Kroh, & Spiess, 2006) was applied, which is based on the Balanced
Inventory of Desirable Responding from Paulhus (1991). The former
was developed to measure social desirability in a short form as other
scales are much longer. The BIDR short scale (see Appendix) can be
used to identify either critical items or critical respondents and includes three items measuring self-deceptive enhancement as well
as three items for impression management. According to Paulhus
(1991), self-deceptive enhancement serves to protect a persons selfimage and self-esteem. It refers to a distorted optimistic perception of reality, and thus an unconscious deceit. Impression
management, in contrast, is a conscious and deliberate deception
to present the best possible image of oneself to another person. The
respondents could choose options on a seven-point Likert scale
ranging from I totally agree to I totally disagree.
In addition to the items measuring the extent of social desirability, we added a text before the questions in which the effect of
social desirability was described to the participants, requesting them
to consider this effect carefully when answering the questions. This
concept is known in the literature as cheap talk and has been
widely and successfully used in the context of willingness to pay
studies (e.g. Cummings & Taylor, 1999; Murphy, Stevens, &
Weatherhead, 2004). The cheap talk treatment contained the following text in our study:
Before you answer the following questions, I would like to draw
your attention to a problem that we have in studies like this.
Sometimes people tend to embellish or even conceal facts in
surveys. Maybe you have heard of this before. This is called social
desirability. It is the behavior of respondents to adapt their
answers to the expectations of the study or the presumed expectations of the researcher in order to be favorable. One example
is the understatement of alcohol consumption. Please bear this
in mind on the following pages. There is no right or wrong answer,
your realistic assessment is important!
Analysis: factor and OLS regression analysis
The analysis was completed in three sequential steps. Firstly, an
exploratory factor analysis was performed on the data to detect latent
structures behind the series of behavioral and cognitive-emotional
variables and to reduce the variables into manageable sets. Factor
loadings were calculated with a Varimax rotation process. Items with
factor loadings lower than 0.5 were removed, as well as items with
substantial double loading on two or more factors. The factor analysis was assessed using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartletts tests.
The factor loadings were then used to interpret the factors. Finally,

B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

the Cronbachs alpha (CRA) values were reviewed for internal consistency of the factors. In the second step, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify appropriate item groups forming the
two food variables.
Thirdly, to study and quantify dependencies between the scales,
a multivariate ordinary least squares regression analysis was conducted to test the estimated effects of behavioral and cognitiveemotional wellness on functional or organic food consumption. The
model was specied so that each food type, Yorganic and Yfunctional, is
a linear combination of the independent factors xj. The revised criteria of the regression function were the coecient of determination R2, the adjusted R2, and the F-statistics. To test the regression
coecients, the t-value and the standardized and unstandardized
regression coecients were checked. The standardized coecients were used to describe the results of each model, whereas
the unstandardized regression coecients were considered to
compare both models in the sample (West, Aiken, Wu, & Taylor,
2007). The analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20
for Windows.
Results
Preliminary analysis: social desirability
The BIDR short scale (Winkler et al., 2006) was used in the pretest
to check whether our impression of social desirability in the Perceived Wellness Survey was applicable. The rst study, with 40 participants, showed a signicant correlation between self-deceptive
enhancement in 15 out of 36 items (42%), mainly with emotional,
intellectual, psychological, physical and spiritual wellness categories, whereas impression management only correlated signicantly with 5 out of 36 items (14%) (Table 2). Thus, 17 of 36 (47%)
items of the Perceived Wellness Survey showed a signicant correlation to either impression management or self-deceptive enhancement or to both.
The responses from the full test (n = 685) were therefore examined for self-deceptive enhancement and impression management
prior to analysis. To prevent respondents with high self-deceptive
enhancement tendencies from skewing the results, all those cases
in which the sum of the characteristics of the three self-deceptive
enhancement statements lay between 19 and 21 were removed from
the data set. Thereby, most of the participants with impression management behavior were also eliminated, as impression manage-

97

ment and self-deceptive enhancement correlate. The remaining

subjects were nevertheless tested for impression management, and
the respondents for which the sum of the three items was 21 were
removed. Using these criteria, 130 cases were removed from the data
set, leaving a total of 555 respondents for the subsequent analysis.
Principal component factor analysis: scale development
A conrmatory factor analysis was conducted to build scales measuring organic and functional food consumption (Table 3). The organic
food scale shows high reliability (Cronbachs alpha 0.94) in all eight
items. The most highly loaded items are the consumption of organic
vegetables, fruit, and general organic food.
The functional food consumption factor contains 12 items and
has a reliability of 0.88 (Cronbachs alpha). The most highly loaded
items are general functional food consumption, probiotic milk products, and ACE (vitamin enriched) drinks. All products included in
the scale meet the requirements of functional food that are dened
by Diplock et al. (1999) and Poulsen (1999). Both factors showed a
correlation of 0.440 at the 0.01 level. There is, therefore, an intersection between functional and organic food consumption, meaning
that they are not independent of each other.
Subsequently, an exploratory principal component analysis was
calculated for all the tested wellness items to build higher-order constructs (Table 4). The variables converge in six factors measuring the
cognitive-emotional level (CEL) of well-being and eight factors measuring the behavioral level of well-being and health (BL), which can
be described as one-dimensional scales. Only one factor (Alternative medication and spirituality) is a mixed factor of cognitiveemotional level and behavioral level items. The total explained
variance of this factor analysis was 69.41% with a Kaiser-MeyerOlkin value of 0.77. The Cronbachs alpha values were within the
acceptable range and indicate the internal reliability of the factors.
Only physical activity, social wellness (family), alternative medication and spirituality, health care and prevention, risk behavior, and tobacco and caffeine reduction were found to have
intermediate values. However, a Cronbachs alpha value below the
cut-off value of 0.7 is considered to be acceptable in the case of a
new scale (Flynn, Schroeder, & Sakakibara, 1994) or a scale with a
meaningful content (Schmitt, 1996). Furthermore, lower Cronbachs
alpha values are justied when there are a small number of items
per factor, such as in the case of tobacco and caffeine reduction
and risk behavior in this survey.

Table 2
Perceived Wellness Survey items correlating signicantly with impression management (IM) or self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) (Sample 1: n = 40).
Items

IM

Correlation between IM and SDE

There have been times when I felt inferior to most of the people I knew.a
In general, I feel condent about my abilities.
I sometimes think I am a worthless individual.a
I am uncertain about my ability to do things well in the future.a
I will always be secure with who I am.
I will always seek out activities that challenge me to think and reason.
Generally, I feel pleased with the amount of intellectual stimulation I receive in my daily life.
The amount of information that I process in a typical day is just about right for me.
I am always optimistic about my future.
I always look on the bright side of things.
In the past, I have expected the best.
I expect to always be physically healthy.
Compared to people I know, my past physical health has been excellent.
My body seems to resist physical illness very well.
It seems that my life has always had purpose.
I feel a sense of mission about my future.
I believe that there is a real purpose for my life.
Only items with a signicant correlation at *** P 0.00, ** P 0.01 or * P 0.05 are displayed.
a Reverse-keyed items.

SDE

PWS dimension

0.11
0.53**
0.45**
0.39*
0.49**
0.34*
0.33*
0.35*
0.36*
0.48**
0.32*
0.20
0.33*
0.38*
0.05**
0.47**
0.47**

Emotional
Emotional
Emotional
Emotional
Emotional
Intellectual
Intellectual
Intellectual
Psychological
Psychological
Psychological
Physical
Physical
Physical
Spiritual
Spiritual
Spiritual

0.48**
0.35*
0.30
0.37*
0.26
0.15
0.31
0.23
0.14
0.33*
0.16
0.13
0.34*
0.043**
0.19
0.25
0.17
0.26

98

B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

Table 3
Food consumption items and scale reliability.
Scale

Items

Mean

Standard
deviation

Factor
loadingc

Organic food consumption

Reliability: Cronbachs alpha 0.94

1. Organic vegetables/saladsb
2. Organic fruitb
3. General organic food consumptiona
4. Organic milk and dairy products
5. Organic bread and bakery goodsb
6. Organic meat and sausage productsb
7. Organic cereal (e.g. muesli)b
8. Organic eggsb

2.75
2.83
2.81
2.56
2.34
2.32
2.25
2.96

1.56
1.56
1.36
1.55
1.41
1.41
1.43
1.76

0.89
0.89
0.88
0.87
0.85
0.84
0.79
0.78

Functional food consumption

Reliability: Cronbachs alpha 0.88

1. General functional food consumptiona

2. Probiotic milk productsb
3. ACE drinksb (drinks enriched with vitamins A, C and E)
4. Wellness waterb
5. Wellness akes/mueslib
6. Oral care chewing gumb
7. Bread with vitamins/supplementsb
8. Energy drinksb
9. Low-fat productsb
10. Low-sugar productsb
11. Table salt enriched with uoride and/or folic acidb
12. Cholesterol-lowering oil or spreadb

2.50
2.38
2.24
2.02
2.04
2.57
2.06
1.77
2.92
2.82
3.58
2.26

1.29
1.52
1.33
1.37
1.37
1.65
1.31
1.26
1.51
1.51
1.87
1.54

0.80
0.77
0.76
0.75
0.75
0.74
0.65
0.64
0.6
0.57
0.52
0.35

a
How often have you eaten organic food/foods with additional health benets during the last 6 months?; Scale: 6-point Likert scale: once a week and more frequently
(6)/twice a month (5)/once a month (4)/once every 23 months (3)/once every 46 months (2)/rarely, never, I dont eat it (1).
b
How often do you generally eat the following organic products/foods with additional health benets?; Scale: 6-point Likert scale: always (6)/almost always (5)/often
(4)/rarely (3)/seldom (2)/never I dont eat them (1).
c Rotated factor loadings (Varimax).

OLS regression analysis: factors affecting food choice

A regression analysis with the ordinary least squared (OLS)
method was conducted to examine the roles of both cognitiveemotional and behavioral items in the consumption of organic and
functional foods as shown in Table 5. The Psychological-emotional
wellness and the risk behavior factor needed to be eliminated
from the model as they were insuciently linearly correlated to the
dependent variable, which would otherwise violate the OLS model
assumptions. Overall, the model explains 30.7% of the variance in
organic food consumption. The results indicate that the use of alternative medication and spirituality, social community involvement, physical activity, and healthy eating behavior are all positive
contributors to the consumption of organic food. In general,
cognitive-emotional well-being does not correlate with organic food
consumption, whereas health behavior does have a signicant
inuence.
In order to examine the effects on functional food, the same model
was calculated, but with functional food as the dependent variable (Table 5). The two factors, physical wellness (CEL) and physical activity (BL), needed to be excluded from the model as the
linearity with the dependent variable could not be shown. Overall,
the model explains 33.5% of the variance of the functional food
consumption.
Spa, relaxation and wellness, social wellness (friends), social
community involvement, beauty and wellness, and tobacco and
caffeine reduction all had a positive inuence on functional food
consumption. However, psychological-emotional wellness showed
a signicant negative effect. In contrast to organic food, the cognitiveemotional level of well-being and health did affect functional food
consumption in the respondents tested.
Discussion and conclusions
This study is one of the rst attempts to examine organic and
functional food consumption using the same model. These two
groups have previously always been analyzed independently, despite
the fact that they are both responses to the same trend in increas-

ing consumer awareness about the health issues surrounding food.

The studys ndings contribute to the understanding of consumer
behavior, especially concerning the consumption of organic and functional food. Overall, they highlight the importance of a healthy lifestyle and increased well-being for the consumption of organic or
functional foods.
Before generalizing the results of this empirical study, some limitations need to be considered. The rst aspect is the problem of using
an absolutely accurate translation of the components of the Perceived Wellness Model (Adams et al., 1997), which is the theoretical basis of the study. Despite careful translation and testing, it is
possible that the German translation did not fully reect the original components. Furthermore, in line with Adams et al. (1997), the
participants were asked to respond to the statements using a sixpoint Likert scale. However, several studies have shown that a vepoint or seven-point scale with a midpoint is preferable (Garland,
1991; Komorita & Graham, 1965; Weijters, Cabooter, & Schillewaert,
2010). In this context, the question of the optimal number of scale
points for the Perceived Wellness Survey needs to be discussed
further.
In addition to the thematic focus, the present study also deals
with the bias of social desirability. Until now, the inuence of social
desirability has been considered only in clinical studies in the context
of mental health and psychopathology but not in wellness research papers (e.g. Ardell, 1977; Hettler, 1980; Travis & Ryan, 2004).
For example, adolescents who suffer from a chronic mental health
disease have been shown to report a lower degree of psychopathological symptoms than healthy peers due to the phenomenon of
social desirability (Boeger, Seiffge-Krenke, & Roth, 1996). Following the results of our analysis on the inuence of social desirability, we recommend that a scale, such as the Balanced Inventory of
Desirable Responding Short Scale (Winkler et al., 2006) used here,
should be developed for surveys on very personal issues or health
issues to assess social desirability. This scale has the advantage of
being very short compared with other scales and can be easily integrated into questionnaires. Nevertheless, it should be tested
whether the scale is reliable and valid in other countries and
cross-culturally.

B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

99

Table 4
Cognitive-emotional and behavioral items and scale reliability.
Scale/Reliability
(Cronbachs alpha)

Items

Mean

Standard
deviation

Factor
loadinga

Psychologicalemotional wellness
(CEL)
0.73

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

3.94
4.22
3.52
4.59
3.90

1.51
1.60
1.49
1.31
1.64

0.77
0.73
0.69
0.60
0.47

Occupational wellness
(CEL)
0.93

1. I am satised with the amount of variety in my work.c

2. I enjoy my work.c
3. I nd satisfaction in the work I do.c

4.25
4.35
4.14

1.42
1.37
1.42

0.90
0.89
0.89

Physical wellness (CEL)

0.77

1. My physical health is excellent.b

2. I expect to always be physically healthy.b
3. My physical health has restricted me in the past.*b

3.78
4.24
3.48

1.38
1.34
1.69

0.84
0.68
0.56

Spiritual-emotional
wellness (CEL)
0.77

1. It seems that my life has always had purpose.b

2. I believe that there is a real purpose for my life.b
3. I always look on the bright side of things.b

4.10
4.20
4.18

1.39
1.38
1.20

0.81
0.81
0.50

Social wellness (family)

(CEL)
0.62

1. My family has been available to support me in the past.b

2. Sometimes I wonder if my family will really be there for me when I am in need.*b
3. Members of my family come to me for support.b

4.63
4.30
4.42

1.39
1.65
1.33

0.80
0.74
0.61

Social wellness
(friends) (CEL)
0.71

1. My friends know they can always conde in me and ask me for advice.b
2. My friends will be there for me when I need help.b

5.00
4.46

1.00
1.23

0.84
0.81

Alternative medication
and spirituality
(BL/CEL)
0.62

1. Before I take prescribed medication, I rst try to cure myself only with traditional home remedies or
alternative medicines (e.g. homoeopathy and Bach ower remedies).b
2. Esoteric approaches (e.g. meditation, astrology, tarot, pendulums, aroma, or color therapy) play an
important role in my life.b
3. It is my aim to bring body and spirit into harmony.b
4. I am religious.b

3.89

1.60

0.68

4.35

1.37

0.66

4.23
2.72

1.39
1.72

0.59
0.42

4.29
4.12
3.20
3.42

1.24
1.31
1.64
1.67

0.84
0.80
0.64
0.54

2.43
2.65
2.95

1.52
1.49
1.41

0.87
0.80
0.70

3.78
3.84
3.09
4.48

1.26
1.46
1.44
1.23

0.74
0.73
0.69
0.67

I feel, more than ever, overworked and have an overwhelming amount of work.*b
I sometimes think I am a worthless individual.*b
I often feel stressed in everyday life.*b
I avoid activities which require me to concentrate.*b
Life does not hold much future promise for me.*b

My appearance is very important to me.b

I do something for my appearance.b
I pamper my body with body care products or massages.b
I pamper myself now and then at home.b

Beauty and wellness

(BL)
0.83

1.
2.
3.
4.

Social community
involvement (BL)
0.79

1. I participate in volunteer activities beneting others.c

2. I contribute time or money to community projects.c
3. I actively seek to become acquainted with individuals in my community.c

Healthy diet (BL)

0.74

1.
2.
3.
4.

Spa, relaxation and

wellness (BL)
0.74

1. Wellness means displaying luxury to the outside world.b

2. I regularly go to the cosmetician or to a beauty salon.b
3. For relaxation I do yoga, tai chi, or qi gong.b

2.69
1.82
2.01

1.58
1.35
1.39

0.77
0.76
0.56

Physical activity (BL)

0.63

1. Do you exercise regularly?d

2. How many hours per week do you exercise (for example, cycling or walking at medium to high speed)?e

3.35
4.66

1.55
2.78

0.87
0.81

Health care and

prevention (BL)
0.62

1.
2.
3.
4.

3.70
3.39
3.94
2.67

1.43
1.44
1.71
1.43

0.72
0.61
0.54
0.41

Risk behavior (BL)

0.62

1. I travel carefully on the road.b

2. In my hobbies (sports, crafts, etc.) I behave cautiously.b

4.69
4.07

1.09
1.30

0.79
0.77

Tobacco and caffeine

reduction (BL)
0.52

1. I avoid the use of tobacco.b

2. I limit my consumption of caffeine.b

4.30
3.70

2.07
1.71

0.81
0.77

I eat healthily and always have a balanced diet.b

I am careful to eat as little fat as possible.b
I eat what tastes good, and I do not care particularly about whether it is healthy.*b
I eat lots of fruits and vegetables.b

When I experience illness, I take necessary steps to correct the problem.b

I practice active health care to improve my prowess.b
I have my breasts or testes examined yearly by a physician.b
I participate in activities that provide relief from stress.*b

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin: 0.77; Explained variance: 69.41.

CEL, cognitive-emotional level of well-being and health; BL, behavioral level of well-being and health.
a Rotated factor loadings (Varimax).
b 6-point Likert scale: very strongly disagree (1) to very strongly agree (6).
c
6-point Likert scale: almost never (1) to almost always (6).
d 6-point Likert scale: No, and I do not want to (1) to Yes, more than 4 times a week (6).
e 8-point Likert scale: 0 hours (1) to more than 5 hours (8).
* Item recoded into opposite due to negative factor loading.

The results of this study conducted in Germany show that organic

food consumption is not inuenced by cognitive-emotional wellbeing, apart from the mixed behavioral/cognitive-emotional level
of well-being and health factor alternative medication and spirituality. In other words, alternative medication and spirituality increase ones probability of eating organic food. We assume that a
preference for alternative medicine is associated with a more natural

way of life. So far there has been a lack of studies that focus on associations between traditional medicine and nutritional aspects.
However, Astin (1998), in addition to a variety of other authors, has
shown a connection between alternative medicine and a holistic view
of health.
Our study has contributed to the area of well-being and health
research by providing results concerning food preferences. Regard-

100

B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

Table 5
Factors affecting organic and functional food consumption.
Organic food consumptiona
Variables
Constant
Psychological-emotional wellness (CEL)
Spiritual-emotional wellness (CEL)
Occupational wellness (CEL)
Physical wellness (CEL)
Social wellness (family) (CEL)
Social wellness (friends) (CEL)
Social community involvement (BL)
Spa, relaxation and wellness (BL)
Beauty and wellness (BL)
Alternative medication and spirituality (BL/CEL)
Health care and prevention (BL)
Healthy diet (BL)
Physical activity (BL)
Risk behavior (BL)
Tobacco and caffeine reduction (BL)

Unstandardized
coecients
0.04c
0.06
0.03
0.06
0.02
0.09
0.21
0.11
0.09
0.29
0.08
0.13
0.12c
0.05

Standardized
coecients
c

0.05
0.03
0.05
0.02
0.09
0.22***
0.11
0.09
0.29***
0.07
0.12*
0.12*c
0.05

Functional food consumptionb

t
0.68c

P-value

Unstandardized
coecients

Standardized
coecients

0.50c

0.00
0.19
0.02
0.01c
0.06
0.17
0.14
0.23
0.14
0.01
0.09
0.07c

0.84
0.49
0.92
0.28
1.50
3.70
1.74
1.32
4.66
1.18
2.05
2.17c

0.40
0.62
0.36
0.78
0.13
0.00
0.08
0.19
0.00
0.24
0.04
0.03c

0.87

0.39

0.03
0.09

P-value

0.19***
0.02
0.01c

0.04
4.10
0.39
0.19c

0.97
0.00
0.69
0.85c

0.06
0.17***
0.14***
0.22***
0.14**
0.01
0.09
0.07c

1.26
3.59
2.86
4.26
2.68
0.17
1.77
1.39c

0.21
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.87
0.08
0.17c

0.03
0.09*

0.74
2.05

0.46
0.04

CEL, cognitive-emotional level of well-being and health; BL, behavioral level of well-being and health.
a R = 0.583; R2 = 0.340; Adjusted R2 = 0.307; DurbinWatson 1.84; F = 10.28***.
b R = 0.596; R2 = 0.356; Adjusted R2 = 0.335; DurbinWatson 1.92; F = 16.89***.
c
This independent variable was eliminated from the model due to insucient linear correlation to the dependent variable.
*** P 0.00, ** P 0.01, * P 0.05.

ing health behavior, two areas were identied that inuence the consumption of organic products: a healthy diet as well as physical
activity and participating in sport, both of which have also been conrmed by other studies (e.g. Chen, 2009; Hoffmann & Spiller, 2010).
Moreover, it can be said that commitment in society favors the consumption of organic products. Healthy eating, physical activity, and
natural medicine dominate health behavior. Therefore, it can be said
that an active healthy lifestyle can be characterized by the activities in which people are engaged.
Cognitive-emotional well-being plays a more important role for
the consumption of functional food than for organic food. Reduced
psychological-emotional well-being increases the likelihood of eating
functional food. Various empirical studies indicate the tendency
to eat as a mechanism to regulate negative emotional states (Macht,
Haupt, & Ellgring, 2005; Macht & Simons, 2000). Until now, there
are no studies concerning associations between eating as a strategy to regulate emotions and the consumption of functional food.
But we can assume that persons who suffer from negative
psychological-emotional well-being tend to use eating as one strategy to reduce negative feelings. Dean et al. (2012) showed that the
relevance of health problems to oneself has strong inuence on
willingness to buy functional food and on perceptions of benets
of these products. Therefore, persons who suffer from negative emotional feelings could tend to buy foods that promise well-being and
happiness. However, our results showed that functional food consumption is clearly linked to positive social well-being in the context
of friends. In general, the social contexts in which functional
food consumption takes place are rarely studied. Results of focus
groups show that consumers of functional food report experiences of disease among family and friends, leading to increased
awareness of risk factors for diseases (e.g. cholesterol in the development of heart diseases) (Niva, 2007). In the light of this result,
one can assume that consumers of functional food are highly involved in close social relationships and attribute a high importance to them, because health-related experiences in these
relationships seem to be signicantly associated with the own food
consumption. They could prefer functional food to prevent health
problems and diseases experienced especially by friends. It can be
supposed that the role of friends, especially in the life of singles, is
an important source of emotional and social support, and in some

cases can substitute the traditional family social relationship (Bellotti,

2008).
The results of a study by Urala and Lhteenmki (2003) provide
another approach to explain the association between functional food
consumption and social well-being. The consumption of functional food is associated with an ethical reward, and it is characterized
by a high degree of social acceptability. In the view of functional
food consumers, this consumption pattern seems to be associated
with favorable impression in social contexts (Urala & Lhteenmki,
2004). One can assume that consumers of functional food are eager
to make a good impression in social contexts in general. They invest
a lot in the cultivation of satisfactory social relations especially with
friends, which in turn results in high social well-being. Further research concerning the importance of social relations in the consumption of functional food is necessary.
Concerning health behavior, social commitment plays a lesser
role in functional food consumption than it does in organic food consumption. Social community involvement is the only predictor that
is common in both consumption models. The reason behind the importance people place upon functional and organic food consumption can, perhaps, be explained in that they do not only think about
themselves but are also generally concerned about others. The factor
of social community involvement contains two statements in the
context of the idea of charity: I participate in volunteer activities
beneting others and I contribute time or money to community
projects. The third statement used in this factor, on the other hand,
represents more the socializing aspect as I actively seek to become
acquainted with individuals in my community. The consumption
of functional and organic food is associated with social dedication. However, it can be assumed that there is a difference in how
these two kinds of consumption can be characterized by their social
commitment-related behaviors. As environmental concerns and environmental protection are important motives for organic purchases (Squires, Juric, & Cornwell, 2001), it can be presumed that
charity aspects and altruism are also more marked in the consumption of this type of food (Hoffmann & Spiller, 2010; Shaw-Hughner,
McDonagh, Prothero, Shultz, & Stanton, 2007). In contrast, a characteristic of wanting to get to know people might be more dominant for functional food consumption as indicated by the correlation
analysis of the data set in this study.

B. Goetzke et al./Appetite 77C (2014) 94103

The usage of spas and beauty facilities, relaxation, massages to

indulge, and beauty treatments is positively associated with functional food consumption. This also conrms the European understanding of wellness as mentioned in the literature. In Austria and
Germany, the term was rst used by the tourism and leisure industries in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and is still widely used
(Drrschmid et al., 2008; Nahrstedt, 2008). Beauty in general as well
as the ambition to achieve a beautiful body has been linked to wellness (Miller, 2005). It has become a marketing term partially associated with esoteric elements such as yoga, meditation or natural
cosmetics (Drrschmid et al., 2008). Europeans associate wellness
with pleasure and feeling well to a much greater degree than North
Americans do (Miller, 2005).
It can be assumed that the preference for passive ways to promote
well-being in the context of functional food is associated with more
passive ways in other areas of health-related behavior (Goetzke &
Spiller, 2014). Nutrition should be healthy but without extensive
preparation and effort. Until now, no empirical results comparing
the different areas of health-related behavior have been published. However, our results have shown that functional food consumption was associated with a small but signicant reduction in
the use of stimulants such as caffeine or tobacco. The connection
indicates that leading a healthier lifestyle becomes visible in different areas of life. Different empirical studies show signicant associations between the consumption of tobacco and caffeine
(Swanson, Lee, & Hopp, 1994). Therefore, the reduced intake of one
of the substances for improving the lifestyle is accompanied by the
reduction of the consumption of the other substance. The World
Health Organization (2013) underlines the danger for health that
is associated with tobacco consumption in different campaigns. Concerning caffeine, associations with different illnesses are equivocal. A moderate intake is not accompanied by adverse health effects,
but risk groups like reproductive-aged women or chronically ill
persons should limit their caffeine intake (European Food Information Council, 2013; Lamarine, 1994; Nawrot et al., 2003). In conclusion, the increased consumption of functional food, as well as
the reduction of the intake of caffeine and tobacco, is understandable as indicators of an underlying motivation to lead a healthier
life. These results suggest that the understanding of health is
less holistic for functional food consumption compared with organic
food, but is focused instead on certain unhealthy aspects of life.
In addition, traditional spa services are more important for functional food, indicating a more passive health behavior than in the
organic food model. According to our results, to achieve wellbeing and health, lifestyle is not fundamentally changed, but only
some aspects of it.
Conrmation that health is a reason for buying organic and functional products can also be found at the health behavior and wellness level. Health is an important aspect of the respondents lives,
but the consumption of organic and functional food is driven by different understandings of health. Both are characterized by increasing health and well-being: organic food by an overall holistic healthy
lifestyle that the pioneer of the wellness concept Dunn (1959) described as a healthy lifestyle through lifestyle changes; functional
food by making small adjustments to enhance health and to increase psychological well-being. It can therefore be concluded that
organic food consumption follows more the original North American concept, while functional food consumption follows the European approach, which is heavily inuenced by the spa and
relaxation concept.
Furthermore, the consumption of these food groups is not exclusive, but correlated. Thus, one can assume that there is a group
at the intersection that consumes both organic and functional food.
This shows the importance of studying both consumption patterns, as the two forms of consumption overlap. Considering the
intersection between organic and functional food consumption found

101

in this study, future investigations should be undertaken;

for example, the proportions of the two groups among consumers
as a whole could be quantied using a cluster or target group
analysis. In particular, consumers of functional food have not
been well studied. A further detailed characterization of this target
group would be useful, for example, in terms of personality traits
or similar socio-demographic background (high education, income,
age, etc.).
Due to the large number of potentially relevant items and extracted well-being factors, we have concentrated in this study only
on the direct and linear effects of the well-being factors on the
consumption of organic food and functional food. Beyond this, interactions between functional and organic food as well as among
the single components of well-being could be hypothesized; for
example, physical activity might have an indirect effect on consumption, mediated by psychological emotional wellness. The existence of such indirect or moderator effects should be tested with
the help of structural equation models or path analyses in further
studies.
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Appendix
BIDR short scale (translated from the German paper of Winkler et al., 2006).
Item

Dimension

I always know why I like things.

I am often uncondent of my judgement.a
My rst impression of people usually turns out
to be right.
There have been occasions when I have taken
advantage of someone.a
Im always honest with others.
I have received too much change from a
salesperson without telling him or her.a

Self-deceptive enhancement
Self-deceptive enhancement
Self-deceptive enhancement
Impression management
Impression management
Impression management

7-point Likert scale: very strongly disagree (1) to very strongly agree (6).
a
Reversedkeyed items.

103