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# What social representations do French consumers have of sustainable diets? Segmentation by level of education

Oriane Chene, Stephanie Chambaron, Gaëlle Arvisenet, Laurence Dujourdy

► To cite this version:

Oriane Chene, Stephanie Chambaron, Gaëlle Arvisenet, Laurence Dujourdy. What social representations do French consumers have of sustainable diets? Segmentation by level of education. Forum des Jeunes Chercheurs (FJC), Jun 2024, Dijon, France. hal-04668701

HAL Id: hal-04668701

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04668701v1

Submitted on 7 Aug 2024

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# What social representations do French consumers have of sustainable diets? Segmentation by level of education

Oriane Chene

*Forum des Jeunes Chercheurs (FJC) June 6, 2024*

Research organization: Center of Taste and Feeding Behavior (CSGA), Centre INRAE Dijon

Thesis directors: Stéphanie Chambaron (DR INRAE) and Gaëlle Arvisenet (PR Institut Agro Dijon)

Thesis funding: INRAE Human Nutrition Department and the Bourgogne Franche-Comté Region
Sustainable diets: a necessity

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While we produce enough food for the entire population, the current food system is unsustainable and contributes to:

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30% of GHG emissions

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Air and water
pollution

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Biodiversity loss

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1.9 billion people
overweight and obese

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Stunting of 159 million
children under 5 years of
age

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Nearly a third of food
produced is wasted

Adapted figure (OECD, 2020)

2
Sustainable diets: ‘the established definition’

"Sustainable diets are those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations.

Sustainable diets are **protective and
respectful of biodiversity and
ecosystems**, **culturally acceptable,**
**accessible, economically fair and
affordable**; **nutritionally adequate,**
**safe and healthy**; while optimizing
natural and human resources."

(FAO, 2010)

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Figure adapted from Chaire
ANCA
Research goal

Consumers may not be aware of this definition

If this expression evokes a different concept for each
consumer, following recommendations that urge consumers
to adopt a more sustainable diet (European Commission,
2023, French Ministry of Health and Prevention, 2019) may
be complicated.

Aim: Investigate how consumers understand this concept

Interviews on the subject in France:

Rémésy et al., 2008

Hugol-Gential, 2023

Mathe, 2009

Verdeau & Monnery-Patris, 2024

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A study with a larger number of participants is needed
Social representations are the set of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and information shared by a group about a given subject (Abric, 1994)

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*What five words, expressions, or adjectives come spontaneously to your mind when I say 'sustainable diet'?*

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Once they had listed five evocations, participants were asked to **rank them** from 1 to 5: 1 for their **most important** evocation and 5 for the **least important** one.
Objectives

1) Determine whether ‘sustainable diet’ had a common meaning for French consumers

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## Objectives

1) Determine whether 'sustainable diet' had a **common meaning** for French consumers

2) Confirm that French consumers' social representations of sustainable diets **differed** from the FAO definition of 2010

Association with **Environmental dimension**, negligence of the **Sociocultural and Socioeconomic dimensions**

(Barone et al., 2019, László, 2021, Mesías et al., 2023, Simpson and Radford, 2012, Techio et al., 2016)

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# Objectives

1) Determine whether 'sustainable diet' had a **common meaning** for French consumers

2) Confirm that French consumers' social representations of sustainable diets **differed** from the FAO definition of 2010

Association with **Environmental dimension**, negligence of the **Sociocultural and Socioeconomic dimensions**

(Barone et al., 2019, László, 2021, Mesías et al., 2023, Simpson and Radford, 2012, Techio et al., 2016)

3) Identify potential **differences** in French consumers' social representations in relation to their **level of education**

Highest knowledge and interest of people with higher education

(Sánchez-Bravo et al., 2020; Barone et al., 2019; Van Loo et al., 2017)

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Sustainable
diets

Figure adapted from Chaire ANCA
# Socio-demographic characterization of participants

The experiment was performed at the CSGA in Dijon

273 participants

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People with higher education: 58.9%
People without higher education: 41.1%

Balanced in terms of age and gender

Female: 52 %
male: 48 %

Aged 20 to 60: Between 23.8% and 26.4% per age group
# Result 1: Structural analysis of social representations for all participants

**Objective 1:** Determine whether 'sustainable diet' had a **common meaning** for French consumers

**Structural analysis: 1) Categorization of evocations according to meaning:**

(Abric, 2001) 1269 evocations → 36 categories

2) Determining **the central core**: categories that are most frequently cited and most important

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Frequency threshold = total frequency of occurrence of the category with the highest score/2

Importance threshold = average of importance scores for all categories
# Result 2: Comparison between the social representations of sustainable diets and the established definition

**Objective 2: Confirm that French consumers' social representations of sustainable diets differed from the FAO definition Categorization of evocations in dimensions:**

1269 evocations → 5 dimensions

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The area of the petals represents the percentage of the dimension identified in all evocations. Category font size corresponds to frequency of evocation.
# Result 3: Structural analysis of social representations by education level

## Objective 3: Identify potential **differences** in French consumers' social representations in relation to their **level of education**

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>Group with higher education</figcaption></figure>

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The group with higher education was composed of participants who had completed at least one year of higher education.
# Result 4: Comparison of social representations, by dimension and by level of education

## Objective 3: Identify potential **differences** in French consumers' social representations in relation to their **level of education**

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The frequency of quotation by dimension is indicated. Letters in brackets represent the results of the Chi2 Test: different letters indicate that the number of evocations for the dimension was significantly different between the two groups; n.s indicates that there was no significant difference between the two groups.
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"Ecology" and "organic" were the words most often cited to describe sustainable diets.

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Consumers mainly associated the *Environmental* dimension with sustainable diets.

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Consumers tend to neglect the *Sociocultural* and *Socioeconomic* dimensions.

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The group with higher education had more multidimensional social representations.
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ELSEVIER

Food Quality and Preference

Available online 18 May 2024, 105224

In Press, Journal Pre-proof

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What's this?

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# "If I say sustainable diet": What are French consumers' social representations?

Oriane Chene<sup>a</sup> ⌚✉, Gaëlle Arvisenet<sup>a</sup>, Laurence Dujourdy<sup>b</sup>, Stéphanie Chambaron<sup>a</sup>

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