The food-energy-water (FEW) nexus presents an opportunity to rethink predominant approaches to household behavior change science. We linked emerging FEW nexus research with existing literature examining household consumption and pro-environmental behaviors. While a large body of work examines the environmental impacts of household life and explores pathways to behavior change for sustainability, the literature lacks studies that test interventions in multiple FEW resource categories, leaving researchers unable to identify tensions and tradeoffs in the household system. To guide this developing field and accumulate findings on household behavior across disciplines, we proposed a conceptual typology that synthesizes interdisciplinary analytic traditions to classify behavioral interventions targeting the household FEW nexus. The typology synthesizes behavioral interventions as active, passive, or structural, and household-specific or non-specific, illustrating six distinct categories: information, tailored information, action, gamification, policy/price change, and material/technology provision. A review of 40 studies that guided the typology identifies four significant lessons for future intervention research: household non-specific information and tailored information work better together, feedback is more effective when it is persistent, price-based interventions (information or incentives) are often ineffective, and material/technology provision is very effective but utilized in few household studies. To push forward household resource consumption science, we advocated for a holistic nexus focus that is rooted in interdisciplinarity, coalition building with stakeholders, and data reporting that facilitates knowledge accumulation.
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Food Practice Lifestyles: Identification and Implications for Energy Sustainability
Food systems, including production, acquisition, preparation, and consumption, feature importantly in environmental sustainability, energy consumption and climate change. With predicted increases in food and water shortages associated with climate change, food-related lifestyle and behavioral changes are advocated as important mitigation and adaptation measures. Yet, reducing emissions from food systems is predicted to be one of our greatest challenges now and in the future. Traditional theories of environmental behavioral change often assume that individuals make “reasoned choices” that incorporate cost–benefit assessment, moral and normative concerns and affect/symbolic motives, yielding behavioral interventions that are often designed as informational or structural strategies. In contrast, some researchers recommend moving toward an approach that systematically examines the temporal organization of society with an eye toward understanding the patterns of social practices to better understand behaviors and develop more targeted and effective interventions. Our study follows on these recommendations with a study of food consumption “lifestyles” in the United States, using extant time use diary data from a nationally representative sample of Americans (n = 16,100) from 2014 to 2016. We use cluster analysis to identify unique groups based on temporal and locational eating patterns. We find evidence of six respondent clusters with distinct patterns of food consumption based on timing and location of eating, as well as individual and household characteristics. Factors associated with cluster membership include age, employment status, and marital status. We note the close connections between age and behaviors, suggesting that a life course scholarship approach may add valuable insight. Based on our findings, we identify opportunities for promoting sustainable energy use in the context of the transition to renewables, such as targeting energy-shifting and efficiency-improvement interventions based on group membership.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1737565
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10377854
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 1660-4601
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 5638
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Normative messaging interventions have proven to be a cost-effective strategy for promoting pro-environmental behaviors. The effectiveness of normative messages is partially determined by how personally relevant the comparison groups are as well as the lag of feedback. Using readily available energy use data has created opportunities to generate highly personalized reference groups based on households’ behavioral patterns. Unfortunately, it is not well understood how data granularity (e.g., minute, hour) affects the performance of behavioral reference group categorization. This is important because different levels of data granularity can produce conflicting results in terms of group similarity and vary in computational time. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the performance of clustering methods across different levels of temporal granularity of energy use data. A clustering analysis is conducted using one-year of energy use data from 3,000 households in Holland, Michigan. The clustering results show that behavioral reference groups become the most similar when representing households’ energy use behaviors at a six-hour interval. Computationally, less granular data (i.e., six and twelve hours) takes less time than highly granular data which increases exponentially with more households. Considering the enormous scale that normative messaging interventions need to be applied at, using less granular data (six-hour intervals) will permit interveners to maximize the effectiveness of highly personalized normative feedback messages while minimizing computation burdens.more » « less
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Abstract Objective The current study tested whether people with and without eating disorders (EDs) varied in their implicit attitudes toward ED‐relevant stimuli. Additionally, the study tested whether implicit evaluations of ED‐relevant stimuli predicted ED symptoms and behaviors over a 4‐week interval.
Method Participants were people without EDs (
N = 85) and people seeking treatment for EDs (N = 92). All participants completed self‐report questionnaires and a version of the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) at baseline. The AMP indexed implicit evaluations of average body stimuli, eating stimuli, and ED‐symptom stimuli. Participants with EDs completed weekly follow‐up measures of ED symptoms and behaviors for 4 weeks.Results Contrary to predictions, the anorexia nervosa (AN) group did not differ from the no ED group on implicit attitudes toward ED‐symptom stimuli, and the bulimia nervosa (BN) group had less positive implicit attitudes toward ED‐symptom stimuli relative to the no ED group. In line with predictions, people with AN and BN had more negative implicit attitudes toward average body and eating stimuli relative to the no ED group. In addition, among the ED group more negative implicit attitudes toward eating stimuli predicted ED symptoms and behaviors 4 weeks later, over and above baseline ED symptoms and behaviors.
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Abstract Objectives This study investigates the association of infant eating behaviors with infant size, and if those associations are mediated by infant feeding.
Methods Mothers with infants less than 12 months of age and living in Central North Carolina were enrolled (
N = 61). Data were collected at baseline and at 3‐ and 6‐month follow up visits. Modified constructs from the Baby Eating Behavior Questionnaire (BEBQ) and Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ) measured parents' perceptions of infant eating behaviors related to food approach (enjoyment of food, and food responsiveness) and food avoidance (food fussiness, satiety responsiveness, and slowness in eating). Linear mixed effects models tested longitudinal associations among infant eating behavior ratings, infant feeding (breastfeeding intensity, timing of introduction of complementary foods), and anthropometry (weight, length, and weight‐for‐length z‐scores). Path analyses were stratified by age and tested for direct and indirect effects of mothers' ratings of infant eating behaviors and infant feeding on infant anthropometry.Results Linear mixed models showed that general appetite was associated with higher weight‐for‐age, and satiety responsiveness was associated with lower length‐for‐age. Path analyses showed that infant milk feeding did not mediate associations. Breastfeeding intensity was independently associated with lower weight‐ and length‐for‐age
z ‐scores. Age at complementary feeding initiation was associated with lower length‐for‐agez ‐scores.Conclusions Associations between parental perceptions of general appetite, satiety responsiveness, and infant weight and length are observed early in life. These findings suggest that parental perceptions of infant eating behaviors may contribute to the early developmental programming of later health outcomes.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19095638
