Individual factors appear to be more important than environmental factors in predicting fruit consumption in adults

In a study just published in Public Health Nutrition, we explored individual determinants of fruit intakes, such as attitudes, intentions and habit strength, and neighbourhood environment (such as availability of fruit points of purchase in the neighbourhood) and home environment (such as home availability of fruit and modeling by family members) determinants of fruit intakes. We more precisely explored if individual factors mediated the possible influence of environments, i.e. that neighbourhood and home environments have an impact on fruit intake via attitudes and intentions as predicted by recent socio-ecological models for predicting health behaviors. We used the GLOBE study (led by Dr. Frank van Lenthe) data for our analyses. Our study showed that individual factors were more strongly related to fruit intake in this population of adults than neighbourhood or home environment factors; modeling by family members, i.e. family member providing a good example by eating ample amounts of fruit themselves, was a significant home environment factor. The influence of family members appeared to be mediated by habit strength and perceived behavior control. This means that adults with fruit eating family members had stronger habits and experienced more control regarding fruit intake.