The influence of subjective socioeconomic status on food intake : how does food insecurity play a part?

Abstract

The issue of obesity continues to be a prevalent problem in the current century. In developed countries, those belonging to a lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at higher risks of obesity. Apart from studying objective indicators of SES (e.g. income, education), experimental subjective SES has shown significant links with food intake. The two aims of this paper are: 1) To replicate findings of causal subjective SES on food intake, where the latter is often associated with risks of obesity and other major health-related problems. 2) To explore objective and subjective forms of food insecurity (FI) as mediators of this relationship. Study 1 sampled undergraduates in a Singaporean university in a lab setting, while Study 2 was conducted as a comparison study on Americans online. In both studies, participants were randomly assigned to either of the three different conditions: high SSES, low SSES or control. Both studies had similar findings. As hypothesized, objective FI did not mediate the relationship between SSES and portion selection while non-significant findings for subjective FI as a mediator was inconsistent with the other hypothesis. Manipulation check item for SSES also showed non-significant findings, suggesting that manipulation was not strong enough across conditions to change participants’ view. Further discussion of the findings as well as limitations of the studies have been included. Future research should continue to explore the relation between experimental SSES and eating behaviours.