Food neophobia levels of Lebanese and American college students

Food Quality and Preference 20 (2009) 353–362

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Food neophobia levels of Lebanese and American college students Ammar Olabi a,*, Nour El Ouyoun Najm a, Omar Kebbe Baghdadi a, Jessica M. Morton b a b

Nutrition and Food Science Department, 315 FAFS, American University of Beirut, Riad El Solh 1107 2020, Beirut, Lebanon Wine Education, Press Club, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 9 July 2008 Received in revised form 24 December 2008 Accepted 22 January 2009 Available online 20 February 2009 Keywords: Food neophobia Cross-national Novel Food preferences

a b s t r a c t Food neophobia, defined as the reluctance to eat novel foods, is a personality trait that influences everyday human food choices. The objectives of this work were first, to compare food neophobia levels among American and Lebanese college students (n = 1122), second to assess the effect of personal variables such as country of residence, socio-economic status (SES) on food neophobia levels, and third to examine the effect of food neophobia levels on the familiarity and willingness to try ratings of familiar and novel foods. Average food neophobia scale (FNS) score for all respondents was 33.1 ± 11.3. Differences on FNS scores were obtained between American (29.8) and Lebanese (36.4) students (P < 0.05). Number of trips taken outside the country, frequency of eating ethnic foods and history of sickness after eating a new food were significant (P < 0.05). Food neophilic subjects had higher familiarity and willingness to try scores for familiar and novel foods. Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction Food neophobia, defined by Pliner and Hobden (1992) as the ‘reluctance to eat and/or avoidance of novel foods’, is a personality trait that influences everyday human food choices. In fact, food neophobia has been shown to affect willingness to try novel foods, expected-liking and sampling behaviour for these foods (Raudenbush & Frank, 1999). The food neophobia scale (FNS) which consists of 10 statements that are rated on a 7-point scale with descriptors ranging from ‘‘disagree strongly” to ‘‘agree strongly” assesses a person’s food neophobia level as well as his/her willingness to try novel and/or familiar foods (Pliner & Hobden, 1992). The results of three validation studies indicated that FNS scores predicted behaviour in relevant situations (Pliner & Hobden, 1992). In fact, subjects’ expected-liking of novel foods was highly correlated to their FNS scores. Pliner and Hobden (1992) found that food neophobia correlated negatively with familiarity with novel foods. Moreover, the authors concluded that food knowledge and experience influence interest in trying new foods. One of the many variables that bear some influence on the level of food neophobia is socio-economic status (Flight, Leppard, & Cox, 2003). Recent literature has suggested that gender, age, education and living area (urban vs. rural) relate to a person’s response on the FNS. Furthermore, this literature indicated that women were less food neophobic than men, with older subjects showing higher food neophobia levels and subjects possessing a higher level of education being less food neophobic (Tuorila, Lähteenmäki, Pohjalainen,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +961 1 374374x4500; fax: +961 1 744460. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Olabi). 0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2009.01.005

& Lotti, 2001). Flight et al. (2003) found that exposure to diverse cultures and higher socio-economic status (SES) may increase knowledge of a wide variety of stimuli, including food, and be negatively associated with food neophobia. Similarly, findings by MacNicol, Murray, and Austin (2003) seemed to indicate that lower socio-economic status is associated with an increased tendency to possess a fussy/picky attitude toward food and higher food neophobia levels. The influence of urbanization on food neophobia is also of significance. Tuorila et al. (2001) conducted a study in Finland which indicated that the level of food neophobia decreases with an increased level of urbanization. Flight et al. (2003) measured food neophobia among rural and urban Australian high school students. Rural adolescents had a higher mean FNS score than urban adolescents indicating a higher level of neophobia among the rural adolescents. In addition, participants with a rural identity showed a greater level of suspicion toward novel foods compared to those with an urban identity (Bäckström, Pirttilä-Backman, & Tuorila, 2004). For Martins and Pliner (2005), the familiarity of the food (novel vs. familiar) and its origin (animal vs. non-animal) determine the factors that best predict willingness to try familiar and novel animal and non-animal foods. In a study by Arvola, Lähteenmäki, and Tuorila (1999), 92 females rated the expected and actual taste pleasantness of two familiar and two unfamiliar cheeses, and ratings were lower for food neophobics (FNPho) for all cheeses, except for the most familiar cheese. Moreover, familiarity with and willingness to try ratings for novel foods were higher for food neophilics (FNPhil), with lower familiarity ratings of several familiar foods being given by neophobes, compared to neophiles (Raudenbush &

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Frank, 1999). Furthermore, Tuorila et al. (2001) found that less food neophobic subjects, that is those with lower FNS scores, tend to taste and eat foods, whether familiar or novel, more frequently. Findings by Flight et al. (2003) indicated that urban subjects were significantly more familiar with different foods and more willing to try unfamiliar foods than rural students. The study of food neophobia is of particular importance because food neophobia can impact food preferences (Raudenbush & Frank, 1999; Tuorila et al., 2001). Understanding the factors influencing food preferences is essential for the implementation and promotion of positive changes in the food habits of any society, especially with the prevalence of obesity, which is becoming a growing concern in both developing and developed countries, and hence the associated need for creating healthier eating habits. For instance, the tendency to avoid new foods is often associated with a tendency to eat the same types of food repeatedly and, thus, have a more restrictive diet (Tuorila et al., 2001). Several studies have focused on factors influencing neophobia levels in children (Falciglia, Couch, Gribble, Pabst, & Frank, 2000; Galloway, Lee, & Birch, 2003; Hursti & Sjöden, 1997; MacNicol et al., 2003; Rigal, Reiter, Morice, De Boissieu, & Dupont, 2005). Though researching food neophobia with children is an important and needed activity, it would be interesting to assess food neophobia levels with young adults, that is college students who should have more stable food neophobia levels and a high level of education. There is great need for more cross-national studies because these studies can help researchers pinpoint any cultural and national variables that influence everyday food choices and the willingness to try novel foods in particular. In fact, Ritchley, Frank, Hursti, and Tuorila (2003) developed a six-item FNS scale and used confirmatory factor analysis to compare FNS scores between subjects of the USA, Finland and Sweden. The study revealed that both American and Finnish adults were equally food neophobic, but were more food neophobic than Swedish adults. Accordingly, it is safe to expect FNS scores to differ cross-culturally and crossnationally. Information obtained from cross-national studies can further our understanding of the variables of influence on food neophobia in different countries and thus possibly help in the development of programs aimed at promoting dietary change. Studies by Pliner, Pelchat, and Grabski (1993) and Loewen and Pliner (1999) have shown the positive effect of prior exposure to good-tasting novel foods on food neophobia. Rigal et al. (2006) reported an increase in mean food liking scores of a population of obese adolescents enrolled in a 9-month residential weight program (WRP) that encouraged the consumption of a wide variety of foods. The objectives of this work were first, to compare food neophobia levels among American and Lebanese college students, second, to assess the relationship between personal variables such as place of origin, socio-economic status, education and exposure to other cultures, and food neophobia levels, and third, to examine the effect of food neophobia levels on the familiarity and willingness to try ratings of familiar and novel foods.

2. Materials and methods 2.1. Questionnaire The questionnaire used in this work was a modified version of the food neophobia scale (FNS; Pliner & Hobden, 1992), and included questions about demographics, cultural diversity, and a list of 15 food stimuli that were assessed for their familiarity and willingness to try. The FNS (Pliner & Hobden, 1992) comprises ten questions to which participants respond on a 7-point category scale, with a descriptor for each item, ranging from 1 being disagree strongly to 7 being agree strongly (2 and 6 = moderately; 3

and 5 = slightly). Accordingly, the total scores of this scale vary between 10 and 70 and hence if the obtained mean and standard deviation were, for example 35 and 10, then any subject with a score 625, >25 and <45, or P45 would be classified as food neophilic, neutral or neophobic, respectively. Five of the scale questions are included as reversed, whereby a high score is indicative of a high level of neophilia rather than neophobia. The 10 FNS items, which were included in this study’s questionnaire, are shown in Table 1. In addition, participants were asked about their age and gender, their level of education and monthly income. Furthermore, to probe for the background of the students and assess the environment they were raised in, questions regarding the parents’ educational level, monthly income and occupation were included in the questionnaire. Similar questions were used in previous studies (Flight et al., 2003) aimed at assessing the effect of cultural diversity and socio-economic status on the level of neophobia in rural and urban Australian adolescents. As measures of SES tend to be based upon educational attainment (Flight et al., 2003), and since the study was aimed at college students, this information would need to relate to the students’ parents. An SES variable with three levels – lower, middle, and high – was created. The first level of SES corresponded to neither (or the only parent) having no more than a high school degree. High SES corresponded to both parents having a college degree, and the remaining students were classified as middle SES. A similar classification had been earlier used by Delva, Johnston, and O’Malley (2007). The income variable was classified into lower income or mid-to-high income. The USA Census Bureau’s estimated lower limit for the top 4th quintile for household income in 2006 was used as the cut-off for the American data while the cut-off used for the Lebanese data was based on the estimated lower limit for the top 4th quintile for household income in 1997 provided by the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs and adjusted for the inflation between 1997 and 2006. To measure the level of exposure to other cultures, participants were asked about the town where they spent most of their lives to assess if they came from a rural or urban environment. The criterion used by Borders and Booth (2007), which stated that for an area to be classified as urban it had to be ‘‘a county or group of adjacent and economically linked counties that has at least one urbanized area with a population of 50,000 or more”, was followed to classify American and Lebanese students’ respective living areas as urban or rural. In addition, participants were asked about the number of trips they had taken outside the USA or Lebanon, the number of times they ate fast food per week and the number of times they went to ethnic food restaurants per week. All of these three questions above were rated on 8-point category scales varying between 0 and 6 and a final category >6 (specific number added by respondent). Questions concerning the presence of food allergies and a history of sickness upon trying new foods were also mentioned in the questionnaire and rated on a 2-point category scale (yes or no). The familiarity and willingness to try each of the foods listed in the questionnaire were both 5-point category scales and were adapted from the Tuorila et al. (2001) study. The familiarity scale comprised of five categories labeled as ‘‘I do not recognize the product = 1”, ‘‘I recognize the product, but I have not tasted it = 2”, ‘‘I have tasted the product = 3”, ‘‘I occasionally eat the product = 4”, ‘‘I regularly eat the product = 5”. The 5-point willingness to try scale was anchored with only ‘‘not at all = 1” and ‘‘extremely = 5” at its ends. After being trained on how questionnaires should be filled out, undergraduate and graduate students were in charge of distributing the questionnaires to the participants. Faculty members of large classes in the different academic institutions were contacted and following their approval, the questionnaires were adminis-

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Table 1 Food neophobia scale, mean values, standard deviations of items and varimax rotated factor matrix. Items marked with R are negative to food neophobia, and were recorded prior to analyses. Loadings that are higher on either factor have been marked in bold Item 1R 2 3 4R 5 6R 7 8 9R 10R

I am constantly sampling new and different foods I do not trust new foods If I do not know what is in a food, I will not try it I like foods from different countries Ethnic food looks too weird to eat At dinner parties I will try a new food I am afraid to eat things, I have never had before I am very particular about the foods I will eat I will eat almost anything I like to try new ethnic restaurants

Mean

SD

Factor 1

Factor 2

4.8 3.2 4.1 5.7 3.2 5.5 3.2 4.1 3.6 5.1

1.5 1.7 2.1 1.5 1.8 1.5 1.8 1.9 2.1 1.6

0.188 0.479 0.623 0.185 0.373 0.361 0.535 0.723 0.615 0.181

0.512 0.339 0.121 0.665 0.433 0.454 0.387 0.204 0.254 0.720

0.218

0.200

% Variance explained

tered either before the beginning or after the end of lectures in classes. The questionnaire was approved by the appropriate human subjects’ committee of each university or college before it was distributed to students. 2.2. Participants Questionnaires were distributed to 1398 participants from the USA (643, California) and Lebanon (755). The participants were students coming from California Polytechnic State University and Cuesta College in the USA and from the American University of Beirut (AUB), the American University of Science and Technology (AUST) and the Lebanese University (LU) in Lebanon. Participants from each country filled out the questionnaires, which were in English for both countries because English was the language of

instruction in the chosen Lebanese universities. The number of questionnaires was balanced between the different universities within each country. Out of the collected questionnaires, those with a familiarity score P2 (I recognize the product, but I have not tasted it) for funistrada (fictitious food) were deleted and this resulted in the omission of 26 and 62 questionnaires in the USA and Lebanon, respectively. In addition, any questionnaires with missing answers on questions were deleted and these represented 63 and 125 questionnaires in the USA and Lebanon, respectively. This resulted in a total number of remaining questionnaires of 1122 (554 USA; 568 Lebanon) that were used for the data analyses. The average age and standard deviation was 20.9 ± 4.7 and 20.3 ± 2.4 for the USA and Lebanon, respectively. The USA sample included 289 females and 265 males, while the Lebanese one had 335 females and 233 males.

Table 2 Food neophobia scores by country and food sickness for both countries (significant variables in analysis of variance) and food neophobia scores in USA and Lebanon by gender, socio-economic status (SES), income, living area, history of food sickness, and food allergy status Variable

Country

Categories

Mean

SD

Minimum

Maximum

N

Country**

USA Lebanon

All Categories

29.8b 36.4a

11.7 9.8

10 10

65 66

554 568

Food sickness* (new foods)

Both Countries

Never sick Been sick

32.6b 34.4a

11.0 11.8

10 10

66 66

782 340

Gender

USA

Women Men Women Men

36.7 36.0 30.1 29.4

10.1 9.3 11.7 11.7

10 14 10 10

66 66 65 65

336 232 289 265

High Middle Low High Middle Low

36.2 35.8 37.3 29.4 29.9 30.6

9.6 9.6 10.3 11.9 11.8 11.0

10 10 14 10 10 10

66 61 66 65 61 64

274 133 161 295 152 107

Low Middle-high Low Middle-high

37.3 36.1 30.1 29.7

9.4 9.9 10.4 12.0

11 10 10 10

65 66 61 65

158 410 108 446

Urban Rural Urban Rural

36.2 37.6 29.9 29.6

9.8 9.8 11.8 11.6

10 17 10 10

66 66 65 65

469 99 281 273

Never sick Been sick Never sick Been sick

35.9 37.9 28.8 31.6

9.6 10.1 11.3 12.3

10 10 10 10

66 66 65 65

415 153 367 187

Not allergic Allergic Not allergic Allergic

36.1 38.4 29.5 31.6

9.7 10.1 11.8 10.6

10 10 10 12

66 65 65 60

503 65 490 64

Lebanon SES

USA

Lebanon

Income

USA Lebanon

Living Area

USA Lebanon

Food sickness (new foods)

USA Lebanon

Food allergy

USA Lebanon

* **

P < 0.05. P < 0.01.

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2.3. Food stimuli

they will be randomly distributed on different factors. In addition, subjects were classified based on their FNS to three food neophobia categories or groups (FNG): low, medium and high. The low and high categories were based on a ±1.0 standard deviation (positive for high, negative for low) difference from the mean of the whole group (USA and Lebanon). The remaining subjects were included in the middle category. This type of classification has been used in previous studies and is considered the norm (Pliner & Hobden, 1992; Raudenbush & Frank, 1999; Tuorila et al., 2001). An analysis of variance with the FNS as the dependent variable and country of residence (USA vs. Lebanon), gender, socio-economic status (SES, three categories), income of parents (high vs. low), living area (urban vs. rural), history of food sickness after trying new foods, history of food allergy, number of trips taken outside country of residence, number of visits to fast food restaurants per week, number of trips to ethnic food restaurants per week and their two-way interactions as predictor variables was performed. The last three variables were continuous variables, while the other variables were discrete. In addition, a X2 analysis (2  3) was performed to compare the percentages of subjects in the three FNG. The familiarity of the foods for the three different FNG was analyzed by dividing the familiarity scores into two categories as performed in the Tuorila et al. (2001) study. The two categories were ‘‘not recognized/tasted” (for familiarity scores of 1 or 2) and ‘‘has tried/tasted” (scores 3–5). A X2 analysis (2  3) was performed to compare the familiarity scores in the three FNG. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated for assessing the relationship between the FNS and willingness to try of the individual foods. Furthermore, an analysis of variance was conducted to assess the effect of country, familiarity rating (dichotomized form, i.e. not recognized/tasted vs. has tried/tasted), FNG and their two-way interactions on the willingness to try scores of the different foods.

Fifteen food items were selected. Five of the items represented familiar foods to both the American and the Lebanese students, five of them represented novel foods to both the American and the Lebanese students, two of them represented familiar foods to the American students but novel foods to the Lebanese students and two of them represented novel foods to the American students but familiar foods to the Lebanese students. The 15th food item, funistrada, was a fictitious food which, like some of the foods described above, especially the novel ones, had been used in previous studies by the authors of this work or by other researchers (Funistrada: Raudenbush & Frank, 1999; Novel foods: Tuorila et al., 2001) and were shown to be novel in those studies. The role of the fictitious food was to assess the reliability of the participants’ answers. These 15 food stimuli were included to assess the familiarity and willingness to try for novel and familiar foods among students with varying levels of food neophobia. The 15 food items are listed in Table 3. Familiar foods in both countries were the chocolate bar, pineapple, tuna fish, ice cream and yogurt. Novel foods in both countries were yakult (Japanese fermented yogurt), dahl (Indian lentil based food), lychee (fruit), snails and tempeh (soybean based meat substitute). Familiar foods in the USA but novel in Lebanon were horchata (dairy beverage with spices) and tofu (soybean based cheese substitute) while novel foods in the USA but familiar in Lebanon were baba ghanouj (an eggplant dip, prepared with tahini, similar to hummus that is chickpea dip) and Nutella chocolate spread. The participants who filled the questionnaires received only the names of the foods and accordingly were not provided with the short descriptions included above for the sake of clarity. TM

2.4. Data analyses The FNS score was calculated for every subject by taking the sum of the 10 scores on the individual questions after reversing the five reversed items. Factor analysis was conducted using the maximum likelihood with the varimax rotation method to assess if the regular and reversed questions would load on different factors, thus implying distinct dimensions of food neophobia, or if

3. Results and discussion 3.1. Food neophobia scale Factor analysis showed that the scale items did not form a coherent single dimension but loaded principally on two factors

Table 3 Percentage of subjects who have tried a food stimuli for each food neophobia group, and correlations between FNS and willingness to try Food name

Na (tasted)

% Subjects who have tried by food neophobia group

FNS  willingness

Low

Medium

High

P

Familiar foods to both USA and Lebanon Chocolate bar 1114 Pineapple 1074 Tuna fish 1039 Ice cream 1109 Yogurt 1054

100 100 99 100 100

99 96 93 99 94

98 90 83 97 88

0.04 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00

0.09** 0.20*** 0.28*** 0.11*** 0.25***

Novel foods to both USA and Lebanon Yakult 77 Dahl 59 Lychée 196 Snails 305 Tempeh 121

7 9 28 54 20

7 5 16 24 10

6 3 10 11 5

0.75 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.53*** 0.57*** 0.51*** 0.49*** 0.56***

Familiar foods to USA but novel to Lebanon Horchata 314 Tofu 620

53 84

25 53

11 31

0.00 0.00

0.53*** 0.46***

Novel foods to USA but familiar to Lebanon Baba ghanouj 508 Nutella chocolate spread 977

38 96

47 87

45 79

0.06 0.00

0.36*** 0.20***

TM

* ** *** a

P < 0.05. P < 0.01. P < 0.001. N total: 1122.

r

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(Table 1). The first is related to apprehension with regard to trying novel and ethnic foods (regular questions) while the second relates to interest in trying new foods (reversed questions), with the variance being almost equally explained by both factors (21.8% for Factor 1 and 20% for Factor 2). This implied that the factors correctly reflected the different dimensions of food neophobia, as intended from this analysis. When this analysis was repeated with the data of each country, similar results were obtained with the American students in terms of the signs and magnitude of the loadings, and accordingly their distribution on the two factors mentioned above. However, factor analysis for the Lebanese students yielded similar results for the first factor (apprehension to trying novel foods) but not for the second one because although the loadings were higher for the reversed questions on Factor 2 (interest in trying new foods), their signs were not consistent with the two above analyses, thus indicating a less coherent interest in trying new foods among the Lebanese students. Table 2 includes the means for each category of the discrete variables that were found to be significant in the analysis of variance and accordingly does not include any means for the continuous variables, namely number of trips taken outside country of residence, number of visits to fast food restaurants per week, number of trips to ethnic food restaurants per week. In addition, Table 2 includes the food neophobia scores in USA and Lebanon by gender, socio-economic status (SES), income, living area, history of food sickness, and food allergy status. The mean FNS score of the whole group of subjects, which included both countries, was 33.1 (SD = 11.3) (Table 2). Lebanese college students (mean FNS = 36.4 and SD = 9.8) were more food neophobic than American (mean FNS = 29.8 and SD = 11.7) college students (P < 0.05). Cultural origins may be at the root of this difference. In fact, American students get exposed to more different foods than Lebanese students, as a result of the inherent diversity in the ethnic structure of the American population compared to the Lebanese one (95% Arab and 5% Armenian), and food neophobic response has been shown to decrease with an increased exposure to unfamiliar foods (Pliner et al., 1993). Furthermore, when one examines the percentage of subjects within each of the three FNG per country a clear and distinct difference exists in the percentage of subjects from the FNG between the two countries (P < 0.001 for X2 test), especially on the low and high FNG. The USA group enjoyed a sizable 29.4% in the low FNG (FNPhil subjects) while the same FNG represented only a meagre 7.9% of the Lebanese group. The opposite was true for the high FNG with 13.4% and 21.5% in the USA and Lebanese groups, respectively. These differences in the two extreme FNG translated to 57.2% and 70.6% in the medium FNG for the American and Lebanese groups, respectively. When the data for both countries was collapsed, the percentages for the three FNG were 18.5%, 64% and 17.5%, for the low, medium and high FNG, respectively, which is not very different from the dispersion obtained by the Tuorila et al. (2001) study that obtained 17.4%, 68.3% and 14.3% for the low, medium and high FNG, respectively. A comparison of resulting FNS scores with those obtained in studies with similar age groups suggests that Lebanese college students (mean FNS score 36.4 ± 9.8) are more food neophobic than Canadian students with a reported average FNS score of 34.51 (Pliner & Hobden, 1992), Australian adolescents (n = 939; age 12–18 years; mean FNS score range 29.33–34.83) as reported by Flight et al. (2003), and undergraduate UK students (n = 228) whose scores averaged 29.51 (Meiselman, Mastroianni, Buller, & Edwards, 1999). In addition, a comparison with different age groups revealed similar trends, whereby Lebanese students were more food neophobic than Finnish subjects (n = 141; aged 16–25 years) with a mean FNS score of 32.3 ± 10.5 (Tuorila et al., 2001) and Swedish parents (24.9–26.4) (Hursti & Sjöden, 1997).

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Number of trips taken outside country of residence affected food neophobia level (P < 0.05). In fact, mean neophobia score was highest for subjects who did not have any trips outside their country of residence. Number of weekly visits to ethnic food restaurants also affected food neophobia level (P < 0.001) with the mean FSN score for subjects who made no weekly visits to ethnic food restaurants reaching as high as 39.36. These two latter variables could give an indication of the level of exposure to cultural diversity. Combined with the main effect found for country of residence, these results seemed to suggest that level of exposure to different cultures is an important influencing factor for food neophobia levels among college students. On the other hand, previous findings had shown that exposure to cultural diversity had only weak associations with FNS for a group of Australian adolescents (Flight et al., 2003). Subjects who became sick after trying a new food were more food neophobic than subjects who did not endure such an experience (P < 0.05). This suggested that having a negative food experience when consuming a novel food might increase an individual’s food neophobia level thus leading to an even higher reluctance to try other novel foods in the future. This is in accordance with previous studies that had shown a development of a conditioned taste aversion upon the consumption of a food that is followed by a malaise (Bures, Bermudez-Rattoni, & Takashi, 1998; Rozin, 1986), though some authors have differentiated between a traditional aversion and a cognitive aversion (Batsell & Brown, 1998). One could think of a paradigm where subjects who, for example had experienced food poisoning after eating a novel meat product, would develop a general tendency to become more cautious of new meat products, and would as a result of this experience become more food neophobic. This phenomenon would be the opposite of the one obtained by Pliner et al. (1993) and Loewen and Pliner (1999) who had shown the positive effect of prior exposure to good-tasting novel foods on food neophobia. A significant interaction was observed between the number of weekly visits to fast food restaurants and country of residence (P < 0.01), between the number of trips taken outside country of residence and the number of weekly visits to fast food restaurants (P < 0.05), and between the number of trips taken outside country of residence and the number of weekly visits to ethnic food restaurants (P < 0.01). Some of the variables included in the interactions above, namely number of weekly visits to fast food or ethnic food restaurants were continuous variables and accordingly did not yield means at each level that could be compared via typical statistical mean comparisons performed by the statistical software. However, a more thorough look at the calculated means revealed a general trend of higher FNS scores with a higher number of trips to fast food restaurants for American students, but more consistent scores for the Lebanese students, especially for students from both countries who had between 0 and 5 weekly trips to fast food restaurants, a range that included the majority of American and Lebanese students. As for interaction between the number of trips taken outside country of residence and the number of weekly visits to ethnic food restaurants, a trend of higher FNS scores was obtained for all levels of trips outside country (varied between 0 and >6) between those who had no weekly trips to ethnic food restaurants and those who had one or more trips. In addition, a trend of higher FNS scores with a higher number of trips to fast food restaurants was more obvious for subjects who had three or more trips outside the country of residence but not those who had two or less. The interactions between the number of weekly visits to fast food restaurants and sickness history (P = 0.0817) and between the number of weekly visits to ethnic food restaurants and possession of a food allergy (P = 0.0576) were only of borderline significance. No main effects of gender, SES, income, living area and allergy status on food neophobia were observed. These findings were not

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in agreement with the previous work done by Tuorila et al. (2001) on a representative group of the Finnish population and which had resulted in lower food neophobia scores among women than among men. A similar finding had also been reported earlier by Hursti and Sjöden (1997). Pliner and Hobden (1992), on the other hand, found no gender differences in FNS scores in a sample of Canadian subjects. As for living area, our results differed from that of Flight et al. (2003) who reported a significantly higher mean FNS score for rural students (mean FNS = 34.68) than for city students (mean FNS = 29.35), the implication from that study being that residence in an urban area is likely to enhance the access and exposure to various stimuli and hence could contribute to a decrease in the level of food neophobia. Furthermore, a comparison of the demographic variables between the two countries in Table 2 (gender, SES, income, living area), in addition to food sickness and food allergy, did not reveal any additional trends beside the fact that students in Lebanon had higher FNS scores in all of these variables. No additional comparisons were made because the interactions between these variables and country were not significant. 3.2. Familiarity of food stimuli The number of subjects who had tried/tasted a food and the percentage of subjects who had tried the food within each of the three FNG are summarized in Table 3. The vast majority of subjects had tried the foods that were considered familiar to both countries. On the other hand, most of the subjects had not tried the foods that were considered novel to both countries. As for the foods that were familiar in the USA but not in Lebanon, Horchata had been tried less than tofu, with an Ntasted of 314 vs. 620, respectively. This result was expected given that Horchata is a very specific ethnic food, which is popular in Mexico and in the Hispanic community in the USA and is not one of the items that would be found in Mexican restaurants in Lebanon. On the other hand, tofu is becoming more of a typical item for vegetarians and is available in many Asian restaurants worldwide. The opposite scenario applied to baba ghanouj, which is always served with the Mezze (collection of appetizers) in Lebanon but still did not gain as much familiarity in the USA. As for the Nutella , which like baba ghanouj was supposed to be familiar in Lebanon but not TM

in the USA, it had an Ntasted of 977, which clearly shows that it could be considered a familiar item in both countries, and hence was not the ideal item for this category. Some of the foods included in this work were used in the study by Tuorila et al. (2001), namely a familiar chocolate bar (Tupla), tuna fish, pineapple, tofu and snails. Tuorila’s study with Finnish subjects (n = 1083) had comparable levels for the familiar foods, generally an Ntasted in the low 1000, whereas the Ntasted for tofu and snails was 157 and 147, respectively. This discrepancy could be explained, when it comes to the results of snails, by the significant influence of the French cuisine in the ‘‘food lexicon” of the Lebanese population, especially given that Lebanon is a francophone country. In addition, food preferences in the USA and especially in California, where the American college students were surveyed, are very affected by the diversity of the ethnic groups which represent California’s population (US Census Bureau, 2006) and hence the higher familiarity of Tofu, as shown by the number of USA participants who had tasted tofu (443 out of 554), when compared to the Finnish subjects. There were significant differences in the percentages of subjects who had tried the foods between the three FNG on all the foods from the different categories, with the exception of ice cream, yakult and baba ghanouj. The 11 other foods had been tried significantly more by subjects with low neophobia than those with high neophobia. The significantly higher percentage of Ntasted obtained for the low neophobia category with familiar and novel foods has been observed in other studies. Tuorila et al. (2001) obtained similar results for familiar and novel foods, while Raudenbush and Frank (1999) obtained lower familiarity scores for familiar foods among FNPho as compared to FNPhil. Tuorila et al. (2001) and Hursti and Sjöden (1997) concluded from this type of results that the diet of FNPho is one with fewer items and less variety compared to FNPhil, and that this aspect could be related to a general lack of interest in foods rather than a reluctance to try new foods (Tuorila et al., 2001). The lack of significant differences for ice cream and yakult could be due to the high level of familiarity and novelty for these two items, respectively, which was demonstrated by the very high or very low percentage of Ntasted for ice cream (range: 97–100%) and yakult (range: 6–7%), which was coupled with a very small range.

Table 4 F-values (numbers) and P-values (stars) for effect of food neophobia group (low, medium, high), familiarity (not recognized or tasted vs. tried or eaten the product earlier), and country on willingness to try of foods Food name

Country

Familiarity

FNG

CO  FAM

CO  FNG

FAM  FNG

Familiar foods to both USA and Lebanon Chocolate bar 0.75 Pineapple 1.23 Tuna fish 2.38 Ice cream 6.34* Yogurt 3.33

25.88*** 148.53*** 87.18*** 70.77*** 9.12**

1.62 3.07* 4.42* 1.35 9.72***

1.01 0.74 13.44*** 10.33** 0.12

0.07 2.49 1.14 3.62* 2.71

2.16 0.00 2.50 0.72 4.29*

Novel foods to both USA and Lebanon Yakult Dahl Lychée Snails Tempeh

0.44 2.69 1.60 0.24 19.04***

4.57* 4.30 118.59*** 134.92*** 39.43***

33.79*** 17.38*** 30.63*** 46.58*** 18.79***

0.00 0.74 0.47 0.79 13.06***

3.71* 2.29 2.12 2.92 2.58

0.45 0.20 6.91** 0.45 7.64***

Familiar foods to USA but novel to Lebanon Horchata 46.06*** Tofu 0.16

34.62*** 130.52***

29.35*** 32.44***

48.27*** 10.37**

0.64 0.13

16.48*** 4.12*

Novel foods to USA but familiar to Lebanon Baba ghanouj 2.44 1.12 NutellaTM chocolate spread

106.42*** 868.89***

52.77*** 0.54

1.18 9.24**

5.31** 3.35*

1.60 1.68

CO: country, FAM: familiarity; FNG: food neophobia group. P < 0.05. ** P < 0.01. *** P < 0.001. *

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3.3. Willingness to try food stimuli The correlations between FNS and willingness to try or eat a food are summarized in Table 3. The correlations were all negative and ranged from 0.09 to 0.57 and were all highly significant at the P < 0.001 level, except for chocolate bar (P < 0.01). These results are consistent with the previous familiarity findings, which indicated that a higher neophobia level is related to a lower level of familiarity (Ntasted), and this in turn translated to lower willingness to try ratings. In addition, it is interesting to note that the higher correlations between the FNS and the willingness to try were obtained for the novel foods (range: 0.49 to 0.57) compared to the familiar foods (range: 0.09 to 0.28). A similar trend in terms of the lower magnitude of the correlations for the familiar vs. the novel foods was obtained by Tuorila et al. (2001). Given that, in general, the main difference between the different food neophobia

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groups lies in the reluctance of the FNPho subjects to try new foods, this result provided more evidence to this notion. The results of the three-way analysis of variance for assessing the effect of country, familiarity and FNG and their two-way interactions on the willingness to try of the different foods are summarized in Table 4 and illustrated for each individual food in Figs. 1 (familiar foods) and 2 (novel foods). A significant country effect existed for ice cream, tempeh and horchata. The willingness to try scores were significantly higher in the USA for all three items, which is consistent with the fact that ice cream is a very popular item and Horchata is a more familiar item in the USA, and that the USA group of subjects was less food neophobic and thus probably more exposed to novel items, hence the higher willingness to try ratings for tempeh. Familiarity had a significant effect on willingness to try at a P-value <0.001 for all foods, except yogurt (P < 0.01), yakult (P < 0.05) and dahl (not significant). A significant

Fig. 1. Mean ratings of willingness to try foods for foods originally categorized as familiar to both USA and Lebanon, in three groups of food neophobia (1 = low, 2 = medium, 3 = high) by groups of subjects who had tried or eaten a product before () vs. those who did not recognize or had not tried the product (). The values given beside the graphs are the numbers of subjects in the two subgroups.

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Fig. 2. Mean ratings of willingness to try foods for foods originally categorized as novel to both USA and Lebanon, in three groups of food neophobia (1 = low, 2 = medium, 3 = high) by groups of subjects who had tried or eaten a product before () vs. those who did not recognize or had not tried the product (). The values given beside the graphs are the numbers of subjects in the two subgroups.

effect of familiarity on willingness to try was also obtained for all foods in the Tuorila et al. (2001) study. Food neophobia group (FNG) had a significant effect on the willingness to try of 11 out of the 14 different foods, except for chocolate bar, ice cream, and Nutella chocolate spread. Moreover, a significant country  familiarity interaction was obtained for tuna fish, tempeh, horchata (P < 0.001), ice cream, tofu and Nutella chocolate spread (P < 0.01). It is not surprising that three out of these six significant interactions were obtained with foods that were classified as familiar in one country and novel in the other. Furthermore, a significant country  FNG existed for baba ghanouj (P < 0.01), ice cream, yakult and Nutella chocolate spread (P < 0.05). Finally, a significant familiarity  FNG was obtained for tempeh, horchata (P < 0.001), lychee (P < 0.01), yogurt and tofu (P < 0.05). Upon examining Figs. 1 and 2, the trends apparent in these figures showed that an earlier contact with a food increases the willingness to try it whether it was a familiar or novel food. This is shown by the fact that the willingness to try scores were always TM

TM

TM

higher for those who had tasted the food compared to those who did not for all FNG, with the exception of the low neophobia groups for yogurt. Moreover, the trends in Fig. 1 suggested that a taste experience improved significantly the willingness to try of chocolate, ice cream and yogurt for the high neophobia subjects. This is shown by the relatively similar levels of willingness to try for all neophobia groups for those subjects who had tasted the foods vs. the much bigger differences, i.e. the much lower levels obtained with the high neophobia group compared to the other groups for subjects who had not tasted/recognized the food. The trend obtained with tuna fish is an interesting one because subjects in the low neophobia group had lower willingness to try than the other groups. However, this response is only based on 1% of the subjects of that category (Table 3) and could reflect a small cluster of subjects who do not like sea food for many possible reasons (allergy, dislike, etc.). In addition, none of the FNPhil subjects (low neophobia) had not tasted chocolate, pineapple or ice cream. This trend of a positive influence of a taste experience was also noted

A. Olabi et al. / Food Quality and Preference 20 (2009) 353–362

for snails and tempeh (Fig. 2). This trend was obtained with several foods in a previous study (Tuorila et al., 2001). Moreover, several previous studies have shown the positive effect of repeated exposure on the willingness to try of novel foods (Pliner, Pelchat, & Grabski; 1993; Raudenbush & Frank, 1999). In fact, tasting and repeated sampling of a novel food have been found to be generally effective in reducing neophobia (Birch & Marlin, 1982; Pliner, 1982). As expected, the willingness to try ratings were always higher for the FNPhil (low neophobia) subjects in both categories, i.e. those who had tasted and those who did not, for almost all types of foods (Figs. 1 and 2). 4. Conclusions Lebanese college students were more food neophobic than their American counterparts (36.4 vs. 29.8). In addition, the percentage of subjects who were in the low neophobia group was markedly higher in the USA compared to Lebanon (29.4% vs. 7.9%). The variables that were of significance with respect to having a significant effect on the FNS scores were number of trips taken outside the country, frequency of eating ethnic foods and a history of sickness after eating a new food (P < 0.05). The FNS scores correlated negatively with willingness to try for all foods. Moreover, the familiarity and willingness to try scores were higher for subjects of the low neophobia group compared to other FNG for familiar and novel foods. Furthermore, the willingness to try scores were almost always higher in all FNG for subjects who had tasted a food compared to those who did not. Of course, it is important to note that the results obtained in this work for college students may not be generalizable to an adult non-student population and future studies that will include adults of different age groups can shed some light on this issue. There are several implications of the results above. Given the important differences between the two countries on food neophobia levels, large food companies that are engaged in international product development should take this factor into account. The issue at stake here is whether it would be more challenging for food companies to introduce foods that are ‘‘highly novel”, especially ethnic foods, to markets with high neophobia levels and whether these markets would require more aggressive marketing campaigns, such as a high number of free samples and free coupons; in short, measures that would guarantee a high level of exposure for reducing the reluctance on the side of FNPho subjects. In addition, one should wonder whether there would be a response bias in large-scale hedonic tests that are usually performed in the latter stages of product development, in the sense that the participants in these tests would tend to be more representative of the low neophobia group, and not of the general population because it is from the experience of the primary author of this work that FNPho subjects tend to be reluctant to even participate in taste sessions especially when the nature of the foods is not specified beforehand. Would the same results be obtained if the participants in the hedonic tests were representative of the distribution of FNG in the general population? And, given that the participants in these tests should be motivated, which could not apply to subjects in the high neophobia group, should there be an extra effort to appeal to those subjects with high neophobia levels? With the extent of obesity and its associated chronic illnesses both in developed and developing countries, there is an urgent need for promoting healthy eating habits and lifestyles. Cross-national studies similar to this type of work could further our understanding of variables that impact food preferences, thus facilitating the implementation of positive changes in the food habits of any society. This can be done through the development of strategies that might make the task of introducing novel foods to the diets

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of food neophobic individuals less challenging, such as making small and consecutive changes to the diets of high food neophobia individuals, thus helping to attenuate the extent and consequences of food neophobia. It would be also interesting to assess the effect of food neophobia among adults on the composition of the diet of subjects in different countries because high neophobia levels could have negative consequences on individuals in Western countries with a typical diet that is high in meat and saturated fats but not in some other developing countries where the diet is still a more traditional, cereal grains based one. Another area that is worth exploring is the effect of the social factor, i.e. the presence of familiar individuals who are consuming a novel food on the willingness to try of high neophobia individuals. Along the same line, the influence of the familiarity with the culture of the novel food’s country of origin should be considered. The above two research questions could be implemented in schools for children and teenagers and would provide valuable information for possible educational and intervention strategies. Acknowledgments The authors thank Dr. John Walker and Dr. Thomas Neuhaus for technical assistance, Eman Al Khatib, Hassnein Mnini, Lama Abi Mosleh and Lama Zghaib for assistance with the data collection. The funding from the American University of Beirut in the form of long-term faculty development grant is also greatly appreciated. References Arvola, A., Lähteenmäki, L., & Tuorila, H. (1999). Predicting the intent to purchase unfamiliar and familiar cheeses: The effects of attitudes, expected liking and food neophobia. Appetite, 32, 113–126. Bäckström, A., Pirttilä-Backman, A. M., & Tuorila, H. (2004). Willingness to try new foods as predicted by social representation and attitude and trait scales. Appetite, 43, 75–83. Batsell, R. W., & Brown, A. S. (1998). Human flavor-aversion learning: A comparison of traditional aversions and cognitive aversions. Learning and Motivation, 29, 383–396. Birch, L. L., & Marlin, D. W. (1982). I don’t like it; I never tried it: Effects of exposure on two-year-old children’s food preferences. Appetite, 3, 353–360. Borders, T. F., & Booth, B. M. (2007). Rural, suburban, and urban variations in alcohol consumption in the United States: Findings from the national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. The Journal of Rural Health, 23, 314–321. Bures, J., Bermudez-Rattoni, F., & Takashi, Y. (1998). Conditioned taste aversion: Memory of a special kind. Oxford: Oxford Press University. Delva, J., Johnston, L. D., & O’Malley, P. M. (2007). The epidemiology of overweight and related lifestyle behaviors: Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic differences among American youth. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 33, S178–S186. Falciglia, G. A., Couch, S. C., Gribble, L. S., Pabst, S. M., & Frank, R. (2000). Food neophobia in childhood affects dietary variety. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 100, 1474–1481. Flight, I., Leppard, P., & Cox, D. N. (2003). Food neophobia and associations with cultural diversity and socio-economic status amongst rural and urban Australian adolescents. Appetite, 41, 51–59. Galloway, A. T., Lee, Y., & Birch, L. L. (2003). Predictors and consequences of food neophobia and pickiness in young girls. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 103, 692–698. Hursti, U. K. K., & Sjöden, P. O. (1997). Food and general neophobia and their relationship with self-reported food choice: Familial resemblance in Swedish families with children of ages 7–17 years. Appetite, 29, 89–103. Loewen, R., & Pliner, P. (1999). Effects of prior exposure to palatable and unpalatable novel foods on children’s willingness to taste other novel foods. Appetite, 32, 351–366. MacNicol, S. A. M., Murray, S. M., & Austin, E. J. (2003). Relationships between personality, attitudes and dietary behaviour in a group of Scottish adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1753–1764. Martins, Y., & Pliner, P. (2005). Human food choices: An examination of the factors underlying acceptance/rejection of novel and familiar animal and nonanimal foods. Appetite, 45, 214–224. Meiselman, H. L., Mastroianni, G., Buller, M., & Edwards, J. (1999). Longitudinal measurement of three eating behavior scales during a period of change. Food Quality and Preference, 10, 1–8. Pliner, P. (1982). The effects of mere exposure on liking for edible substances. Appetite, 3, 283–290. Pliner, P., & Hobden, K. (1992). Development of a scale to measure the trait of food neophobia in humans. Appetite, 19, 105–120.

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