Comparing Predictors of Diet Quality in Canada Over Time Under Consideration of Altering Food Guides

Latest data on the diet of Canadians from the Canadian Community Health Survey reveals that the diet quality of Canadians needs improvement. Within this paper predictors of diet quality in Canada are identified based on two cross-sectional data sets from the Canadian Food Expenditure Survey. To measure diet quality, the Canadian Healthy Food Diversity (CanHFD)-Index is developed which is based on Food Guide recommendations. Moreover, this paper considers that the Food Guide between survey years has changed when analyzing diet quality. To track changes in demand for diet quality we use “Canada’s Food Guide 1982” to calculate CanHFD-Index for 1984 and 1996. Changes in demand for diet quality according to “Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating 1992” are observed by calculating CanHFD-Index with data from 1984 and 1996. Theoretically, this model is related to Becker’s household production theory and Lancaster’s characteristics approach. Multiple regression results show significant changes in the Canadian demand for food diversity over time. Some of the differences can be traced back to the different versions of the Canada Food Guide. Increasing age, higher income, being female, and high education level are positive predictors of diet quality in 1984 and 1996 among others.diet quality, healthy food diversity, Canada, Food Guides, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, D12, D13, I12, Q18,

OBSERVING CHANGES IN CANADIAN DEMAND FOR FOOD DIVERSITY OVER TIME

Research on food diversity is interdisciplinary in nature, and is highly relevant for different research fields. Eating a variety of foods has been linked to the nutritional well-being of the household. From an economic perspective, food diversity can be used to derive important conclusions regarding the economic well-being of a population under study. This paper attempts to fill two main research gaps. The first objective of this paper is to analyze the demand for food diversity in Canada for the first time. This includes observing the extent of food diversity and the identification of respective socio-economic determinants. The second main objective is to compare changes in the cross-sectional demand for food diversity over time using three data sets of the Canadian Food Expenditure Survey (1984, 1996 and 2001). Food diversity is measured twice, with a measure used in nutritional studies and an economic diversity measure to draw conclusions for both research fields. Results show that in all years the demand for diversity (both indices) is positively influenced by income, age, and household size. We observe a significant quadratic influence of income in all models. Over all years, males and singles have a lower demand for food diversity than females and married Canadians. In addition, the region the household lives in is a strong predictor of food diversity. We observe changes in demand for food diversity in Canada. It is shown that the demand for food diversity decreased from 1984 to 1996 and 2001.Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A HAZARD ANALYSIS OF CONSUMERS’ SWITCHING BEHAVIOUR IN GERMAN FOOD RETAILING FOR DAIRY PRODUCTS

German food retailing is characterized by fierce competition among retail chains for consumer shopping. This paper considers the switching behaviour using data of white dairy product purchases. The empirical investigation uses a survival analysis approach, in particular hazard analysis. The results extend the knowledge of shopping behaviour by providing a new set of explaining variables and the importance of the first store, defined as store with the major share of household budget, becomes apparent. On average, households buy dairy products 42 times per year. Thereof 58 % are retail chain switches and in 41 % of all cases the households remain at the previously visited retail chain. Generally a low customer loyalty is visible in this investigation. It is shown that switching behaviour is widely influenced - amongst others - by percentage of private label products, percentage of special offers and price consciousness.switching behaviour, store choice, store loyalty, hazard analysis, food retailing, Geschäftsstättenwahl, Geschäftsstättenwechsel, Einkaufsverhalten, Hazard Analyse, Lebensmitteleinzelhandel, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

Spread of retailer food quality standards: An international perspective

Privately initiated food quality standards are currently important elements in the marketing of food and agricultural products. At the same time, they stand in the centre of a discussion about potential negative effects on small farmers and farmers in developing countries. This study aims at analysing the adoption of two private food standards, BRC Technical Food Standard and GlobalGAP, at an aggregated cross-country level. The results of the econometric analysis reveal some (potential) barriers for developing countries to access this type of organisational innovation. Certificates seem to be issued more probably in larger and wealthier countries, countries with a better institutional quality, better infrastructural conditions and in former UK colonies.standards, food quality, adoption, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Semihard Interactions in Nuclear Collisions Based on a Unified Approach to High Energy Scattering

Our ultimate goal is the construction of a model for interactions of two nuclei in the energy range between several tens of GeV up to several TeV per nucleon in the centre-of-mass system. Such nuclear collisions are very complex, being composed of many components, and therefore some strategy is needed to construct a reliable model. The central point of our approach is the hypothesis, that the behavior of high energy interactions is universal (universality hypothesis). So, for example, the hadronization of partons in nuclear interactions follows the same rules as the one in electron-positron annihilation; the radiation of off-shell partons in nuclear collisions is based on the same principles as the one in deep inelastic scattering. We construct a model for nuclear interactions in a modular fashion. The individual modules, based on the universality hypothesis, are identified as building blocks for more elementary interactions (like e^+ e^-, lepton-proton), and can therefore be studied in a much simpler context. With these building blocks under control, we can provide a quite reliable model for nucleus-nucleus scattering, providing in particular very useful tests for the complicated numerical procedures using Monte Carlo techniques.Comment: 10 pages, no figures; Proc. of the ``Workshop on Nuclear Matter in Different Phases and Transitions'', Les Houches, France, March 31 - April 10, 199

New results for hadronic collisions in the framework of the Parton-Based Gribov-Regge Theory

We recently proposed a new approach to high energy nuclear scattering, which treats hadronic collisions in a sophisticated way. Demanding theoretical consistency as a minimal requirement for a realistic model, we provide a solution for the energy conservation, screening problems and identical elementary interactions, the so-called "Parton-Based Gribov-Regge Theory" including enhanced diagrams. We can now present some of our results for SPS and RHIC energies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, To appear in the proceedings of Quark Matter 2002 (QM 2002), Nantes, France, 18-24 Jul 200

Models for RHIC and LHC: New Developments

We outline inconsistencies in presently used models for high energy nuclear scattering, which make their application quite unreliable. Many "successes" are essentially based on an artificial freedom of parameters, which does not exist when the models are constructed properly. The problem is the fact that any multiple scattering theory requires an appropriate treatment of the energy sharing between the individual interactions, which is technically very difficult to implement. Lacking a satisfying solution to this problem, it has been simply ignored. We introduce a fully self-consistent formulation of the multiple-scattering scheme. Inclusion of soft and hard components - very crucial at high energies - appears in a "natural way", providing a smooth transition from soft to hard physics. We can show that the effect of appropriately considering energy conservation has a big influence on the results, and MUST therefore be included in any serious calculation.Comment: talk given at the ``15thInternational Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions'', Quark Matter 2001, Stony Brook, USA, January 15-20, 200

The Nexus Model

The interpretation of experimental results at RHIC and in the future also at LHC requires very reliable and realistic models. Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of such models during the past decade, many of them being heavily used in order to analyze data. There are, however, serious inconsistencies in the above-mentioned approaches. In this paper, we will introduce a fully self-consistent formulation of the multiple-scattering scheme in the framework of a Gribov-Regge type effective theory.Comment: Invited talk given at the International Workshop on the Physics of the Quark Gluon Plasma, Palaiseau, France, September 4-7, 200