Linking foodscapes and dietary behaviours : conceptual insights and empirical explorations in Canadian urban areas

In westernised cities where food is mostly acquired in the retail and catering environment, there may be a link between the foodscape - i.e. the multiplicity of publicly available sites where food is displayed for purchase - and where and what we buy and eat. Yet, how the foodscape shapes dietary behaviours remains unclear. Ease and difficulty of access to “healthy” and “unhealthy” food sources has been recognised as central in the foodscape-diet relationship. As a result, empirical research has mostly investigated the associations between ease of access to healthy outlets and healthy behaviours, on one hand, and “food deserts” – deprived environments lacking access to healthy food outlets – and unhealthy behaviours, on the other hand. However, public health literature lacks perspective on the factors that influence where to purchase and what to eat in situations of multiple – healthy and less healthy – choices. Yet, in industrialised urban contexts characterised by pervasive food retail and facilitated individual mobility, conditions for accessing both healthy and less-healthy food sources are probably commonly met.  Based on these observations, this thesis intents to explore the relationship between foodscapes and dietary behaviours in Canadian urban areas. Firstly, conceptual insights on the multiple factors shaping where to shop and what to eat are provided. Drawing from the commonly held assumption that individuals operate choices that tend to maximize their self-interests, the proposal highlights the importance of considering food outlets’ characteristics (ex. localisation, price, services offered) relatively to individuals’ preferences, constraints and means. However attention is brought on individuals’ limited ability to operate fully-informed choices. Food choices sometimes unfold without much deliberation, as a result of the mere perception of cues in the environment. Especially discussed are the situations where exposure to cues signaling appropriateness of a dietary behaviour provokes the adoption of similar behaviours. It is then suggested that the relative densities of healthy and unhealthy outlets individuals get exposed to may drive a normative message about the relative popularity of these places, and suggest which places are “appropriate” to use.  This thesis then investigates the extent to which relative exposures to healthy and unhealthy food outlets are associated to dietary behaviours. Drawing on multiple secondary datasets pertaining to adult residents of five large Canadian cities, associations between the percentage of healthy outlets in the residential neighborhood and fruit and vegetables intake are examined. As literature highlighted gender differences in the foodscape-diet relationship, whether these associations are different for men and women are further investigated. Finally, these investigations extend to the non-residential environment.  Consistent with our expectations, our research provides evidence of a positive association between the percentage of healthy outlets around home and fruit and vegetable intake. Stronger associations for men than for women were further observed. However, fruit and vegetable intake was not related to the non-residential foodscape, neither for men nor for women.  By providing conceptual justification for, and empirical evidence of, a link between dietary behaviours and relative exposures to healthy and unhealthy outlets, this thesis contributes to better understand how the foodscape shapes dietary behaviours.

Keyphrases: Foodscape, Access, Relative exposure, Residential and non-residential environments, Dietary behaviors, Fruit and vegetable, Gender-differences, Adults