— Master’s Thesis —
The transition and upgrading of grain security to food security, it is the deepening of China’s food security policy in the new era, as well as an important area of safeguarding and improving people’s livelihood. With the rapid socio-economic development leading to the increasingly diversified food consumption needs of residents, the importance of food consumption structure and dietary quality has gradually deepened. At the same time, under the construction of the digital society, the food e-commerce industry is developing rapidly, and online food purchasing has become one of the important channels for urban household food purchasing. However, research on household food security is mainly based on foreign studies, and there is less research on food security at the microscopic scale of the household in China. Also, scant attention has been paid to the impact of online food purchasing on household food security. Therefore, this paper focuses on investigating the impact of online food purchasing on household dietary quality, which can provide a new research perspective for enriching food security research, and also provide relevant decision support for improving household dietary quality and promoting healthy living for all.
This paper selected Nanjing as the study area and conducted a questionnaire survey on household online food purchasing behavior and dietary quality, and finally obtained 1188 valid research data. On the basis of refining food online shopping patterns and measuring household dietary quality, we further constructed econometric models including generalized Poisson regression, multiple linear regression, Logit model, ordered Logit model to investigate the effects of online food purchasing on household dietary quality. Specifically, the study examined the effects both on household dietary diversity and food quality consumption in terms of whether households purchasing food online and the diversity of food online shopping patterns, respectively. Besides, the paper analyzed the differential effects of five types of food online shopping patterns on household dietary quality, and the main results were obtained as follows:
Firstly, the characteristics of household food online shopping behavior in Nanjing are as follows. First of all, online food purchasing has become a more widely used food purchasing mode in urban households in Nanjing. Secondly, the diversity of most household food online shopping patterns is not rich, and the proportion of those who use one food online shopping pattern alone is large. Thirdly, in terms of spatial distribution, at the street level, streets with a high diversity of food online shopping patterns are relatively densely distributed in the main urban area, while the diversity of food online shopping patterns is relatively low in the urban periphery such as Pukou and Liuhe districts.
Secondly, the results of Nanjing’s household dietary quality assessment showed that the overall household dietary quality was at a medium level. The average scores of dietary diversity and food quality consumption score are 7.45 and 11.20, respectively. Among the eight regions studied, the dietary quality of households in Gulou, Jianye, Qinhuai, Xuanwu, Qixia and Yuhuatai districts is relatively high, while the overall performance of households in Pukou and Liuhe districts is low. In terms of food consumption structure, urban households in Nanjing have a more adequate intake of four food groups: cereals, vegetables, fruits and meat; the food groups of eggs, oils, milk and other milk products, other foods such as condiments, coffee or tea have a higher intake rate, and the foods with a lower intake include roots and tubers, fish and shellfish, beans and soy products, and sugar or honey.
Thirdly, both online food purchasing and the diversity of online food purchasing patterns can significantly improve household dietary quality. The effects of online food purchasing on household dietary quality have four pathways, including widening spatial and temporal accessibility, improving economic accessibility, precisely matching supply and demand, and fostering rational consumption concepts. Four pathways can comprehensively ensure the four dimensions of household food security – food availability, access, utilization and stability, which ultimately meet the requirements of household dietary quality for dietary diversity and nutritional adequacy. What’s more, multiple online food purchasing modes complement each other in terms of variety and structural balance in household food consumption, which is conducive to the improvement of household dietary quality. However, due to regional differences in household food access, online food purchasing has not yet played a significant role in improving household dietary quality in peripheral urban areas such as Pukou and Liuhe districts.
Fourthly, there is heterogeneity in the effects of different food online shopping patterns on household dietary quality. The online fresh food self-pickup mode was not significant in ensuring the improvement of household meal quality, while the online group food purchasing mode had a significant contribution in improving household dietary quality. The main reason for this difference lies in the different relationships between different food online purchasing modes and traditional offline purchasing modes. As the online fresh pick-up mode and offline food purchasing modes show substitution effects, while the relationship between the online group purchasing mode and offline food purchasing mode is complementary.
Fifthly, household demographic characteristics also have significant impacts on household dietary quality. The growing age of the household head and the existence of health problems among household members, have a catalytic effect on improving household dietary quality. However, urban migrants and male-centered households are more likely to face the risk of lower household dietary quality.
In conclusion, the study found that online food purchasing has led urban household to gradually develop a complementary online and offline food shopping mode, and verified that online food purchasing and the diversity of online food purchasing modes can significantly contribute to the improvement of household dietary quality, but the improvement effect on the peripheral areas of the city has yet to be revealed. Moreover, the differences in the relationship between different online food purchasing modes and offline food shopping also lead to differences in their contribution to household dietary quality. At last, in terms of policy implications, this paper put forward relevant policy implications to promote the effects of online food purchasing on household dietary quality. The four aspects of policy recommendations including making full use of big data of residents’ food online purchasing, strengthening food safety supervision and building a standardized food supply process of online food purchasing industry, and creating a new model of “new agricultural business entity + online food group buying”.
