Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775

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Food Quality and Preference

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

Satisfaction with food-related life and beliefs about food health, safety, T
freshness and taste among the elderly in China: A segmentation analysis
⁎,1
Rongduo Liua,b, , Klaus G. Grunerta
a
MAPP Centre, Department of Management, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark
b
Research Centre on Food, Consumer Behavior and Gender, Department of Finance, China Women’s University, No. 1 Yuhui East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper focuses on Chinese elderly’s life satisfaction with food, a specific and important domain of Chinese
Satisfaction with food-related life people’s daily life, with two purposes: first, to investigate the relationship between satisfaction with food-related
Life satisfaction life and life satisfaction among Chinese elderly; second, to segment Chinese elderly based on their beliefs about
Food food health, safety, freshness and taste, and profile them by their life satisfaction, satisfaction with food-relate
Segmentation
life, food-related goals, self-rated health status, self-rated economic status and socio-demographic character-
Older people
China
istics. Data were collected by personal interviews conducted in Beijing with 452 participants above 60 years old
from March to May 2018. The correlation between satisfaction with food-related life and life satisfaction in the
present study was positive and higher than in other countries. Three distinct segments were identified: health
and safety concerned (38.6%), hedonic and less health concerned (29.4%), and less safety and somewhat health
concerned (32.0%). The level of satisfaction with food-related life of the elderly was the lowest among the health
and safety concerned segment, neutral in the hedonic and less health concerned segment, and highest among the
less safety and somewhat health concerned segment. The elderly’s food safety belief might play a more dominant
role than other food attributes beliefs in their satisfaction with food-related life. Eating a healthy diet and eating
a safe diet were perceived as the most important food-related goals while keeping food expenditure as low as
possible was perceived as not important by participants. Implications for how to improve Chinese elderly’s
satisfaction with food-related life and future research were discussed.

1. Introduction aspects: objective indicators and subjective perception of quality of life

China’s population is aging dramatically. Understanding the factors
that influence the quality of life of older people is important to develop
efficient strategies to improve the quality of older people’s life in China.
This paper focuses on the food dimension of quality of life of Chinese
elderly and on the factors influencing it. There is no consensus about
how the concept of quality of life is defined or how it should be mea-
sured (Felce, 1997; Moons, Budts, & De Geest, 2006). It generally refers
to evaluating the overall well-being of individuals and societies (Derek,
Ron, & Geraldine, 2009). The concepts of quality of life and well-being
have been used interchangeably in a variety of disciplines (Diener &
Suh, 1997; Felce & Perry, 1995; Kahn & Juster, 2002; Steptoe, Deaton,
& Stone, 2015). Measurements of quality of life include normally two
(Diener & Suh, 1997; Moons et al., 2006). The objective indicators are
known as material quality of life, physical well-being or material well-
being, while the subjective perceptions part is often called subjective
well-being, which in turn has been divided into an affective and a
cognitive component (Andrew & Withey, 1976). The cognitive com-
ponent of subjective well-being can be defined as a global assessment of
a person’s quality of life based on his/her subjective evaluation of life
circumstances. A well-known measure of the cognitive component of
subjective well-being is the Satisfaction With Life Scale developed by
Diener, Emmos, Larsen, and Griffin (1985).
The Chinese government has been putting more emphasis on im-
proving individual life satisfaction, which has been reflected in the post
2004 government policies when the 16th National Congress of the CPC

⁎
Corresponding author at: MAPP Centre, Department of Management, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark.
E-mail addresses: liurd@cwu.edu.cn (R. Liu), klg@mgmt.au.dk (K.G. Grunert).
1
Present address: Research Centre on Food, Consumer Behavior and Gender, Department of Finance, China Women’s University, No. 1 Yuhui East Road, Chaoyang
District, Beijing 100101, China.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.103775
Received 6 April 2019; Received in revised form 22 July 2019; Accepted 22 August 2019
Available online 24 August 2019
0950-3293/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert
set ‘harmonious society’2 as a goal of development in China to reduce
the negative effects of social problems such as environmental dete-
rioration, wealth gap, food safety problems, etc. that may result from
the single-minded pursuit of economic development (China Daily,
2004). For example, local governments in Guangdong and Zhejiang
have already adopted life-satisfaction related indicators to measure
development performance (The Guardian, 2011).
The elderly is a group of special concern in China as the Chinese
elderly population has a higher prevalence of suicide than the general
population (Dong, Chang, Zeng, & Simon, 2015) and the high risk of
suicide among Chinese elderly is associated with poor mental health, a
low level of life satisfaction or a low level of subjective well-being (Liu
& Jia, 2015; Luo, Li, & He, 2015; Dong et al., 2018). Accordingly, a
large amount of research on Chinese elderly’s life satisfaction has been
emerging during last two decades, but most of it is limited by a general
focus. Satisfaction with life can be defined as an assessment a person
makes of his life in general or of particular aspects of life (such as work,
family, health, finance) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985).
Domain-specific satisfaction-with-life measures are especially useful
when trying to assess the impact that changes in life circumstances have
on a specific domain. This study will focus on food, an important do-
main of Chinese people’s life, to investigate Chinese elderly’s satisfac-
tion with food-related life.
The importance of food to the Chinese can not be overemphasized
(Newman & Ludman, 1984; Ma, 2015). The activities and daily con-
siderations relating to the procurement, preparing and intake of foods
are important concerns of Chinese people. The concerns Chinese people
have regarding food have been shifting from how to get enough food for
survival to how to keep a healthy and safe diet. Chinese people have
been historically health conscious. Food has a long history of being used
as medicine in the Chinese’s daily lives to keep healthy, resist disease
and promote longevity (Wu & Liang, 2018). In recent decades, with the
increased living standards, the effects of urbanization, the aging po-
pulation and the prevalence of no-communicable diseases, Chinese
people are more health conscious than before. According to the survey
of BCG (2014), Chinese consumers have become the most health con-
scious in the world. They believe that healthy food and healthy diet is a
crucial factor to stay healthy and therefore pay more attention to what
they are eating. For example, more and more Chinese consumers are
concerned about food with low calories, no artificial additives, organic
ingredients and are willing to pay a premium for healthy food or
functional food (Nielsen, 2016). The increasing consumer concern with
food and health is closely related to the ongoing domestic issues on food
safety in China. Although the government has made great efforts to
regulate the food industry, food safety is still one of the main concerns
of Chinese people (Wike & Parker, 2015). Food safety has been per-
ceived by Chinese people as the factor most influential on their life
quality, more important than housing and environment, due to the
frequently emerging food safety incidents and their adverse health
consequences (China Daily, 2015; Wu, Yang, & Chen, 2017). In addi-
tion, and consistent with research conducted in a western cultural
context, taste is one of the main considerations in food choice among
Chinese consumers (Thøgersen & Zhou, 2012; Ipsos, 2016). As one of
the three core characteristics (color, flavor, taste) of Chinese food and
the soul of Chinese dishes, food taste acts as a source of happiness for
Chinese people. Last, food and meals are an important vehicle used by
Chinese people to strengthen their social interactions with other people
(Ma, 2015). For example, in Chinese society, people usually treat others
with meals to establish or maintain interpersonal relationship (Ma,
2015). Therefore, considering the relation between food and health, the
relation between food and pleasure, and the family and social
2
In folk conversation about well-being in China, the terms ‘happiness’, ‘sa-
tisfaction’ and ‘harmony’ are not always differentiated clearly (Lau, Cummins,
& Mcpherson, 2005).
2
Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775
interactions around food, it can be expected that food is among the
important domains of life that affect Chinese people’s life satisfaction.
Food occupies a considerable part of older Chinese people’s daily
lives. First, food still constitutes the largest part of expenditures of the
elderly in China in general (XF9, 2018; CCA, 2013) and in economically
less developed areas in particular (Chen & Liu, 2015). In addition, the
elderly are the key driver of functional foods consumption in China.
They are increasing their expenditure on functional food, which are
more expensive than normal food, because this group values their
health higher than other expenditure items such as cloth or dining out
(Intelligence Research Group, 2017; USDA, 2012). Second, although
there has been a rise in the popularity of eating out among the young
generation as a consequence of economic change in China, the older
people in China are more likely to prepare food at home (Zhai et al.,
2014). Chinese people spend on average 2 to 3 h every day on food
preparation and cooking, much more than people in other countries
(Ma, 2015). Wu (2015) reports that food preparation and cooking is the
main part of older people’s daily activities in China. The elderly enjoy it
because they regard food preparation and cooking as a kind of daily
physical activity to maintain health. Besides, in traditional Chinese
society, the elderly used to live with their children and grandchildren.
They are more likely to regard sharing the responsibility of caring for
grandchildren including cooking for the whole family as a source of
family happiness (Sheng & Settles, 2006) and as having a beneficial
effect on their psychological well-being (Ku et al., 2013). However,
there is a notable change in living arrangements of the elderly in recent
decades in China. More elderly, so-called ‘empty nest elders’, are living
alone or only with a spouse without children. Empty nest elders ac-
counted for nearly 50 percent of the total aging population or around
100 million Chinese elders in 2010 according to the 6th China's Census
(Sun, 2013). Living away from their children prevents the elderly from
receiving emotional support and physical help with their daily activ-
ities. This change in living arrangements is weakening the traditional
pattern of family support as a way of daily caring for the elderly in
China, and as a result food or meal cooking has become a main concern
to empty nest elders in China because they lack the supports from
children or siblings to cook (ZJonline, 2017). Xi (2015) and Zheng
(2013) found that some empty nest elders were in a status of mal-
nutrition due to consuming irregular or inadequate meals for a long
time. Peng (2011) reported that the empty nest elders who had house
nurses helping them cooking presented a higher level of life satisfaction
than those who didn’t have such help.
Food is thus strongly associated to Chinese elderly’s life and heavily
contributes to the quality of their life. However, food has so far been
neglected and, to our knowledge, no research has been conducted into
Chinese elderly’s satisfaction with their food-related life, its relation-
ship to overall life satisfaction, and its potential determinants. By
identifying which factors are potentially associated with their sa-
tisfaction with food-related life, it may be possible to increase older
people’s satisfaction with their food and in turn contribute to a better
quality of life. Satisfaction with food-related life is a personal value or
life goal. According to means-end chain theory (Gutman, 1982), which
views consumers as goal-oriented decision-makers, satisfaction with
food-related life can be achieved by means of food product attributes by
which consumers achieve consumption benefits, which in turn allow
them to achieve the personal value of satisfaction with food-related life.
However, it is not the food product attributes per se, but consumers’
belief about what the food product attribute is doing for them, i.e. the
self-relevant consequences of the food product attribute that links to the
personal value (Grunert & Grunert, 1995; Grunert & Bech-Larsen,
2005). Satisfaction with food-related life is an abstract goal and at the
top level of the hierarchical structure of goal-directed consumer beha-
vior (Pieters, Baumgartner, & Allen, 1995). It can be achieved by the
fulfillment of sub-ordinate food-related goals of, for example, ‘eat a
healthy diet’, ‘eat a safe diet’, etc.. Consumers’ goals influence the im-
portance of product attributes in product satisfaction since consumers’
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert
goals determine which attributes they use to formulate overall sa-
tisfaction (Garbarino & Johnson, 2001). By this logic, food-related goals
will affect consumers’ beliefs about the importance of food quality at-
tributes in their food-related life. For example, if consumers choose ‘eat
a healthy diet’ as a food-related goal, they might hold the belief that
healthy food is important in their food-related life, and the goal
achievement will affect their satisfaction with food-related life.
Food quality attributes include four central dimensions: hedonic,
health-related, convenience-related and process-related attributes
(Grunert, 2005). According to means-end chain theory, the importance
that consumers attach to these attributes is based on their beliefs on
how these attributes contribute to the attainment of their food-related
goals and eventually, their goal of satisfaction with food-related life.
For example, consumers who think the healthiness of food is important
may believe that a health attribute such as the low-salt content of food
will lead to a lower risk of hypertension as the consequence of con-
sumption, which will realize the sub-ordinate goal of ‘eat a healthy diet’
and then finally contribute to the personal life value of satisfaction with
food-related life. In the same vein, consumers who worry about food
safety might have a lower level of satisfaction with food-related life
because they would worry that the potential food hazards could be
harmful to their health and that their diet is not safe. Taste is the he-
donic aspect of food consumption which can act as a stimulus to arouse
happiness (Macht, Meininger, & Roth, 2005). Food with good taste
could make people happy even though it is unhealthy food rich in fat,
sugar or calorie (Raghunathan, Naylor, & Hoyer, 2006; Wahl et al.,
2017). Brunsø, Fjord, and Grunert (2002) reported that consumers as-
sociated better taste of meat with enjoyment while enjoyment led to a
good feel and happiness. Thus, it could be inferred that consumers who
think that taste is an important food attribute realize a sub-ordinate
goal such as ‘choose food with better taste’ and then have a higher level
of satisfaction with food-related life. Chinese consumers associate food
freshness with health, safety and taste (Jin, Li, & Li, 2017; Wang,
Zhang, Mu, Fu, & Zhang, 2009), it might therefore be inferred that
consumers who believe that food freshness is important in their food
choices would have a higher level of satisfaction with food-related life.
The elderly’s beliefs on the importance of food health, safety,
freshness and taste as a means of achieving satisfaction with food-re-
lated life vary across individuals with different personal and socio-de-
mographic characteristics. Women usually have higher health con-
sciousness (Wardle et al., 2004; Roininen, Lähteenmäki, & Tuorila,
1999), are more aware about the health-diet relationship (Arganini,
Saba, Comitato, Virgili, & Turrini, 2012) and more concerned about
food safety than men (Miles et al., 2004), while food is more likely a
source of pleasure for men than women (Kiefer, Rathmanner, & Kunze,
2005).
Education has a positive influence on the cognition functioning of
the elderly (Cho, Martin, Poon, & Georgia Centenarian Study, 2014),
thus education could improve cognition skills that can help the elderly
to recognize self-relevant consequences of food consumption. Higher
education has been found to be strongly associated with a healthier
dietary pattern of the elderly (Allès et al., 2016). Xue and Ge (2017)
found that well-educated Chinese elderly reported a higher frequency
of fruit and vegetable consumption and better self-rated heath than
their poorly educated counterparts. Thus, the elderly with a higher
education might have a higher level of satisfaction with food-related
life than those with a lower education.
Cognition functioning declines in the process of aging. Oldest-old
people, compared with young-old people, are associated with a higher
prevalence of cognitive impairment. The oldest-old adults are also at an
increased risk of macronutrient malnutrition (e.g. low protein intake)
and micronutrient (e.g. Vitamin D) deficiencies because of a range of
biologic, environmental and social factors such as the decline in taste
sensitivity, poor oral health, diminished appetite, and loss of in-
dependence (Granic et al., 2018). In addition, the oldest-old have more
probability of eating alone due to a spouse leaving, which may be a risk
3
Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775
factor for the depression of older people (Tani, Sasaki, Haseda, Kondo,
& Kondo, 2015). Thus, the level of satisfaction with food-related life
might decrease with age among the elderly.
Older people usually face economic constraints caused by retire-
ment-related income decline. Changes in economic status after retire-
ment might affect older people’s diet variety not only by decreasing
quantity but also by worsening the nutritional quality of food pur-
chased, as healthier or more nutritional alternatives such as fruit, ve-
getables or fish often carry a price premium (Conklin, Maguire, &
Monsivais, 2013). Thus, the elderly with higher income might have a
higher level of satisfaction with food-related life than those with lower
income.
The elderly’s perceived economic situation is likewise related to an
unhealthy diet (Simsek, Doganay, Budak, & Ucku, 2014), depressed
mood (Reyes Fernández, Rosero-Bixby, & Koivumaa-Honkanen, 2016),
poor health (Cheng, Chi, Boey, Ko, & Chou, 2002) and poor quality of
life (Chiao, Weng, & Botticello, 2011), so that the elderly with poor self-
rated economic status might have a lower level satisfaction with food-
related life.
Self-rated health refers to the subjective and personal perception of
individuals’ own health (Schneider et al., 2004). It has been recognized
as an important indicator of health and a strong predictor of functional
decline and mortality in old age (Idler, Hudson, & Leventhal, 1999) and
a better predictor of older people’s subjective well-being than objective
indicators (Angner, Ray, Saag, & Allison, 2009). Better self-rated health
of the elderly has been found to be associated with healthy dietary
pattern (Govindaraju, Sahle, McCaffrey, McNeil, & Owen, 2018), a good
predictor of a higher level of life satisfaction (e.g. Borg, Hallberg, &
Blomqvist, 2006) and satisfaction with food-related life (Morales et al.,
2014; Dean, Grunert, Raats, Nielsen, & Lumbers, 2008).
A longitudinal study in China shows that elderly living together
have better self-rated health than those living alone (Zhou et al., 2018),
because living with others can improve not only the diet quality of the
elderly but also their psychological well-being. In addition, Chinese
elderly who live with their children usually share the responsibility
with their children to look after grandchildren and cook for the whole
family. This contributary behavior of caring for grandchildren is posi-
tively associated with a higher level of life satisfaction of Chinese el-
derly due to Chinese cultural norms of collectivism and family soli-
darity (Liu, Zhang, Wu, & Wu, 2018). Furthermore, those who live with
children might be more concerned about the importance of food health,
safety and freshness for the sake of children’s health and therefore
might have a higher level of satisfaction with food-related life. How-
ever, research in recent years on Chinese elderly’s living arrangements
and life satisfaction finds that living with children does not yield higher
life satisfaction compared to those living only with spouse or living
alone (e.g. Jin, Pearce, & Hu, 2018; Ren & Treiman, 2015; Zhang &
Zhang, 2015) due to the family conflicts between the elderly and adult
children. Thus, the impact of living arrangement of Chinese elderly on
their satisfaction with food-related life warrants further investigation.
The first objective of this study is to confirm the existence of a
positive relation between satisfaction with life and satisfaction with
food-related life among Chinese elderly. As the elderly’ beliefs vary
across individuals and as Chinese older people constitute a hetero-
geneous group with respect to health conditions, financial constraints,
lifestyles, etc. (Liu, 2005), the second objective of this study is to
identify different segments of the elderly based on their beliefs on the
importance of food health, safety, freshness and taste in their food-re-
lated life. The last objective is to investigate the differences between the
segments of the elderly with respect to their life satisfaction, satisfac-
tion with food-related life, the correlation between satisfaction with
food-related life and life satisfaction, food-related goals, self-rated
health status, self-rated economic status and socio-demographic char-
acteristics.
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775

2. Materials and methods ≫ > ≫ insert Table 1

2.1. Data collection

Quantitative data were collected from March to May 2018 in urban
areas of Beijing. Beijing is the second largest city in China in terms of
aging population. Two-thirds of the total aging population aged more
than 60 in Beijing lived in the urban areas by the end of 2016 (ECNS,
2016). Purposive sampling was used to obtain a sample of older par-
ticipants aged 60 years and above in urban areas of Beijing. Concerning
the potential eyesight problems of the elderly and their reading and
comprehension ability, data was collected through face-to-face inter-
views with a structured questionnaire. Interviews were conducted at
public outdoor places such as public community gardens where the
elderly had their daily activities, mainly in the YaYunCun subdistrict of
Beijing. Interviewers were female college students in Grade Three who
were trained in skills of interviewing older people. Average interview
time was 15 minutes. Although no compensation was provided to par-
ticipants for their time, they showed high willingness to participate in
the interview. They indicated that they liked food-related topics and the
chats with interviewers reduced their loneliness.
A total of 452 participants completed the interviews, from which 14
cases with missing values were eliminated from further analysis, thus
yielding a final valid sample of n = 438. Table 1 shows the sample
characteristics of 438 participants. Compared with the Beijing census
data in 2016, there was an overrepresentation of the 70–79 years group
and underrepresentation of the above 80 years group. A possible reason
could be that the oldest people have less outdoor physical activities
compared with other groups, which might reduce the possibility of their
presence in places where the survey was carried out. Compared with
Beijing census data in 2010, where 23 percentage of the urban elderly
in Beijing held a college and above education degree, there is an
overrepresentation of the high-educated group. A possible reason could
be that the communities where the interviews were conducted have a
large number of retired employees from public sectors such as gov-
ernment, state-owned enterprises, hospitals, universities, etc. who have
received higher education. Accordingly, there is also an over-
representation of the high-income (above 5000 RMB monthly personal
income) group. Compared with the Sample Survey of the Aged Popu-
lation in Urban/Rural China (Liu, Lei, & Chen, 2014), there is an un-
derrepresentation of the groups living only with a spouse and living
alone, and an overrepresentation of the group living with children. The
overrepresentation of the group living with children might be due to the
duty they have to buy food for the whole family or take their grand-
children outside, which might increase the possibility of their presence
in the survey places.
2.2. Segmentation variables
This section describes measures used for segmenting the elderly.
Measures used for profiling the segments are introduced in the next
section.
The measure on beliefs about food safety was adopted from the
study of Xun (2011). It consists of five items: ‘Generally, food products
are safe’, ‘I trust in the quality of food’, ‘I am worried about the safety of
food products’, ‘I am satisfied with the safety food products’ and ‘I am
optimistic about the safety of food products’. This measure showed
good reliability and validity when used in a large-scale survey in China.
Two measures for food health beliefs were used, general health
interest and light product interest, based on Roininen et al. (1999). The
measure on general health interest included three items, ‘The healthi-
ness of food has important impact on my food choices’, ‘I am very
particular about the healthiness of food I eat’, and ‘I always follow a
healthy and balanced diet’. The reason to include light product interest
is that the long-term excessive intake of cooking oils and salt in Chinese
dietary habit is associated with various adverse health outcomes such as
hypertension among Chinese adults (Yuan et al., 2017). More than half
of the elderly in China have moderate and severe surplus of oil and salt
(Xu, Hall, Byles, & Shi, 2015), and almost half of the elderly have
suffered from hypertension (Yuan et al., 2017). With government in-
tervention to raise public awareness of healthy eating, the Chinese have
increased their interests in light products (Li, Zhang, & Shi, 2016). The
measure on light product interest includes three items: ‘I think that light
products are healthier than conventional products’, ‘In my opinion, the
use of light products can improve one’s health’ and ‘In my opinion, light
products can help to improve dyslipidemia’.
“Freshness” to the Chinese means food that comes straight from the
farm in a timely manner (Grunert et al., 2011). Food freshness beliefs
were measured by four items: ‘I prefer to buy vegetables straight from
the field’, ‘For vegetable and fruits, I always check its color, smell, etc.
to ensure that I am buying the freshest produce’, ‘For packaged food, I
always check its product date to ensure that I am buying the freshest
produce’, and ‘I will only serve food that I know is fresh’.
Beliefs about food taste were measured by three items ‘Taste is the
most important attribute to me for food choice’, ‘It is more important to
choose food products for their nutritional value rather than for their
taste’ and ‘When cooking or eating, I first and foremost consider the
taste’.
All aforementioned items were measured on five-point Likert scales
from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).

Table 1
Socio-demographic profile of the total sample and three segments (%).
Levels Total samplen = 438 Segment Segment Segment p-value F value/Chi-square
1n = 169 2n = 129 3n = 140

Age Mean (SD) 69.50 (6.87) 69.28 (6.79) 70.33 (6.77) 68.99 (7.05) 0.240 F = 1.431
Gender Male 47.72 37.87 49.61 57.86 0.002 χ2 = 12.525
Female 52.28 62.13 50.39 42.14
Live arrangement Live only with spouse 35.48 34.73 40.63 31.65 0.269 χ2 = 5.184
Live with children 58.99 60.48 77.34 63.31
Live alone 5.53 4.79 7.03 5.04
Education Illiteracy & Primary 16.32 13.10 14.84 21.58 0.108 χ2 = 10.410
school
Middle school 24.14 24.40 26.57 21.58
High school 21.61 24.40 14.84 24.46
College and above 37.93 38.10 43.75 32.38
Income < 3000 27.40 31.95 20.15 28.57 0.195 χ2 = 6.053
3000–4999 33.56 33.73 35.66 31.43
≥5000 39.04 34.32 44.19 40.00
Presence of Children less than 12 years Yes 45.75 45.83 36.22 54.29 0.013 χ2 = 8.757
at home No 54.25 54.17 63.78 45.71

4
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert
2.3. Segment profiling variables
Satisfaction with life (SWL): The SWL scale developed by Diener
et al. (1985) is a five-item scale that measures global cognitive judge-
ment of subjective well-being. Studies conducted in mainland China
report a high internal consistency of the scale in its Chinese version
(Bai, Wu, Zheng, & Ren, 2011). Cronbach’s alpha of the SWL scale in
this study was 0.845.
Satisfaction with food-related life (SWFL): proposed and tested by
Grunert, Dean, Raats, Nielsen, and Lumbers (2007), it consists of five
items: ‘Food and meals are positive elements’; ‘I am generally pleased
with my food’; ‘My life in relation to food and meals is close to ideal’;
‘With regard to food, the conditions of my life are excellent’; ‘Food and
meals give me satisfaction in daily life’. This scale showed good internal
consistency with Cronbach’s α between 0.79 and 0.88 in studies con-
ducted in European countries (Grunert et al., 2007) and south-Amer-
ican country Chile (Morales et al., 2014). SWFL’s Cronbach’s α was
0.896 in the present study, presenting an adequate level of internal
consistency. To prompt participants to think about all elements of their
food-related life and to let the scale items primarily reflect satisfaction
with this domain of life, the participant was asked to think of all the
things s/he did and experienced in relation to food and meals (e.g.,
planning meals, shopping, preparing meals, eating meals) before an-
swering the SWFL questions.
Self-rated health and economic status: Self-rated health was mea-
sured by the SF8 items. The study of Lang et al. (2018), which used a
large and representative sample from China, shows that the Chinese
version of the SF8 (Ware, Kosinski, Dewey, & Gandek, 2001) has good
internal consistency and the traditional 2-factor structure of the SF-8
(physical and mental health) is applicable among city residents in
mainland China, The SF-8 Health Survey was therefore adopted to
measure participants’ health status (overall Cronbach’s α of 0.919; all
data quality indicators satisfactory). Responses to the SF8 items were
split into two dimensions, physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) health,
calculated by weighting each SF-8 item using a norm-based scoring
method given in the instrument guidelines. This standard-based scoring
allows comparisons among SF-8 scores from different studies, since
these scores are normalized to the same reference population. Higher
summary PCS and MCS scores indicate, better health. Scores above and
below 50 are considered above and below the average in the general
U.S. population (Ware et al., 2001). Self-related economic status was
measured by one question developed from Peiro (2006): ‘To what ex-
tent are you satisfied with your current economic situation?’ answered
by a five-point scale from 1 (dissatisfied at all) to 5 (very satisfied).
Food-related goals: A qualitative study in form of semi-structured
in-depth interviews with 11 participants aged more than 60 years and
living in urban area of Beijing was conducted in November 2017 to
extract food-related goals among Chinese elderly. The results of the
qualitative study demonstrated a high external validity of the food-re-
lated goals from Dean et al. (2008) in a Chinese context. However, due
to the food safety problems in China, participants indicated their desire
to have safe food, thus the goal of ‘eat a safe diet’ was added as a
supplementary goal to those of Dean et al. (2008). In the final ques-
tionnaire, participants were asked ‘to what extent is each of the fol-
lowing twelve food-related goals important to your satisfaction with
food-relate life?’ based on a five-point scale from 1 (not important at
all) to 5 (very important).
With the exception of food-related goals, self-rated health and
economic status, all aforementioned items for segment profiling vari-
ables were measured on five-point Likert scales from 1 (totally disagree)
to 5 (totally agree). The questionnaire was developed in English and
translated into Chinese by a professional English–Chinese translator.
Then back-translation was undertaken to ensure linguistic equivalence.
A preliminary version of the questionnaire was pretested in a small
sample of 35 Chinese elderly for clarity of content, language/wording,
overall understanding and length of the survey. Based on their
5
Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775
feedback, the questionnaire was refined and finalized.
2.4. Data analysis
Data were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences) Statistics version 22.0. Due to a large number of questions
covering a wide range of issues, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA)
(using the principal components extraction method with Varimax ro-
tation) was first performed to discover the basic structure underlying
the measures of food safety, food taste, food freshness beliefs and in-
terests in healthy eating and light products. The appropriateness of the
factor model was evaluated by the measurement of sampling adequacy,
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and Bartlett test of sphericity (Hair,
Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). Second, a two-step clustering
procedure (Ward's hierarchical clustering followed by K-means clus-
tering) was applied to identify distinctive and homogenous segments
(Wedel & Kamakura, 2000). Ward’s hierarchical clustering method was
used to identify segments based on the five confirmed factors: beliefs
about food safety, food taste and food freshness, light products interest
and general health interest. After having identified the optimal number
of segments on the basis of the examination of the agglomeration
schedule and the increase in agglomeration coefficient, the clustering
was finetuned by using the non-hierarchical K-means clustering method
(Hair et al., 2006).
Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship be-
tween SWL and SWFL. Segment profiling variables were not normally
distributed. ANOVA is robust to violations of normality when there are
at least 40 degrees of freedom and when group sizes are roughly equal
(Field, 2009), therefore both parametric test One-Way ANOVA F-tests
and non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to profile segments.
Results from One-Way ANOVA F-tests were kept if they were the same
as those from the Kruskal-Wallis test. Otherwise, results from the
Kruskal-Wallis test were kept. Post hoc comparison tests of one-way
ANOVA were Tukey post hoc test when equal variances were assumed
and Dunnett's T3 post hoc test when equal variances were not assumed.
Dunn’s post hoc test was used for the Kruskal-Wallis test.
3. Results
3.1. Factor and segmentation analysis
The KMO measure was 0.818 and the Bartlett’s test of sphericity was
highly significant, indicating that the data matrix (438 cases × 18
variables) is suitable for factor analysis. After Varimax rotation, five
factors were derived, which explained 79% of the total variance with
food safety and light product interest accounting for nearly half of ex-
plained variance. The factor loadings of all 18 items are presented in
Table 2.
Hierarchical clustering was performed based on the mean values of
the five constructs resulting from the exploratory factor analysis as
segmentation variables. Examination of the agglomeration schedule
and the increase in agglomeration coefficient suggested that a three or
four-cluster solution would be optimal. A three-cluster solution was
identified as best explaining the data based on a) variable mean scores,
i.e. a 3-cluster solution represented a parsimonious balance between
minimizing the number of clusters and minimizing variance within
each cluster; b) cluster sizes, i.e. a 3-cluster solution provided the most
substantial number of members in each group; and c) interpretability,
i.e. a 3-cluster solution provided the most straightforward and inter-
pretable results (Hair et al., 2006). Next, a K-means cluster analysis was
performed with initial cluster centres resulting from the hierarchical
procedure. The respective size and mean scores of the segments are
reported in Table 3.
Segment 1 (38.59% of the sample) is constituted by participants
who showed the highest level of worry about food safety, the highest
level of general health interest, the highest mean value of food freshness
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775

Table 2
Results of EFA with rotated factor loadings and variance explained.
Variables used to construct factors Factor loading Variance explained (%) Reliability

Factor 1 food safety beliefs 23.97 0.956

Generally, food products are safe* 0.947
I trust in the quality of food* 0.940
I am worried about the safety of food products 0.847
I am satisfied with the safety food products* 0.948
I am optimistic about the safety of food products* 0.937
Factor 2 light product interest 15.06 0.938
I think that light products are healthier than conventional products 0.921
In my opinion, the use of light products can improve one’s health 0.940
In my opinion, light products can help to improve dyslipidemia 0.905
Factor 3 food taste beliefs 14.31 0.917
Taste is the most important attribute to me for food choice 0.950
It is more important to choose food products for their nutritional value rather than for their taste* 0.799
When cooking or eating, I first and foremost consider the taste 0.953
Factor 4 food freshness beliefs 14.15 0.917
I prefer to buy vegetables straight from the field 0.647
For vegetable and fruits, I always check its color, smell, etc. to ensure that I am buying the freshest produce 0.831
For packaged food, I always check its product date to ensure that I am buying the freshest produce 0.812
I will only serve food that I know is fresh 0.708
Factor5 general health interest 11.97 0.815
The healthiness of food has important impact on my food choices 0.827
I am very particular about the healthiness of food I eat 0.793
I always follow a healthy and balanced diet 0.757
Total variance explained by the factor (%) 79.46

Note: KMO measure: 0.818; Bartlett’s test of sphericity 6685.43, df = 153, p < 0.001.
* Reverse coded.

beliefs and the lowest mean value of food taste beliefs. They also re-
ported a high level of interest in light products. We therefore refer to
this segment as ‘health and safety concerned’.
Segment 2 (29.45% of the sample) is constituted by participants
who emphasized more than the other segments the importance of food
taste while assigning the smallest mean value of all segments to food
health, although they were also worried about food safety. Therefore,
we referred to this segment as ‘hedonic and health less concerned’.
Segment 3 (31.96% of the sample) is constituted of participants who
were the least worried about food safety and the least interested in food
freshness of all the segments. In addition, similar with segment 1, they
reported less interest in light products compared with to segment 2.
Based on these characteristics, we called this segment as ‘less safety and
somewhat health concerned’.
3.2. Cluster profiles
Participants were generally satisfied with their life in general and
their food-related life in particular. A positive and moderate correlation
was found to exist between participants’ life satisfaction and satisfac-
tion with food-related life. ‘Eat a healthy diet’, ‘eat a safe diet’ and
‘choose food products and dishes that you enjoy eating’ were the three
food-related goals that participants perceived as most important to
achieve their satisfaction with food-related life, while ‘control your
weight through your choice of food’, ‘keep food expenditure as low as
possible’, and ‘choose food products and dishes that are quick and easy
to prepare’ were perceived as not important goals. In general, partici-
pants reported a good psychical and mental health status, and a neutral
level of satisfaction with their economic status. Gender and the pre-
sence of grandchildren younger than 12 years within the household
were the only two significant socio-demographic profiling variables
(Table 1). There were no significant differences among the three seg-
ments in terms of their life satisfaction, self-rated psychical status and
the food-related goals ‘vary your menu and have a wide range of foods
and dishes’, ‘be able to cook for others’ and ‘choose food products and
dishes that are quick and easy to prepare’ (Table 4).
Segment 1 (health and safety concerned) comprised the highest
proportion of female participants. Members in this segment reported
the lowest level of satisfaction with food-related life, the lowest level of
mental health status and the lowest level of satisfaction with their
economic status. There was a weak but positive correlation between
SWL and SWFL in this segment. Compared with the other two segments,
they attached higher importance to the food-related goals of ‘eat a
healthy diet’, ‘eat a safe diet’, ‘choose food enjoy’, ‘eat in nice sur-
roundings’ and ‘not need help from others to arrange meals’.
Segment 2 (hedonic and less health concerned) comprised the
highest proportion of participants without grand- children living with
them. They displayed a middle level of satisfaction with food-related
life and self-rated mental health status, but the correlation between
their SWFL and SWL was the strongest among the three segments.

Table 3
Mean ratings of the segmentation variables.
Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 3 Total sample

Size (n and %) 169 (38.59%) 129 (29.45%) 140 (31.96%)

Food safety 4.00c 3.86b 2.18a 3.38
Light product interest 4.06B 3.67A 3.90B 3.89
Food taste 2.07A 3.80C 3.08B 2.89
Food freshness 4.29B 3.98A 4.04A 4.12
General health interest 4.05c 3.51a 3.85b 3.83
Segment name Health and safety concerned Hedonic and less health concerned Less safety and somewhat health concerned

Note: The a-c superscripts indicate significantly different means between segments using Tukey post hoc.
The A-C superscripts indicate significantly different means between segments using Dunnett's T3 post hoc.

6
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775

Table 4
Differences of the profiling variables between three segments.
Total sample Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 3 P – value F value/H-value
(n = 438) (n = 169) (n = 129) (n = 140)

Satisfaction with life (SWL) 3.90 3.84 3.92 3.97 0.060 F = 2.835
Satisfaction with food-related life (SWFL) 3.92 3.85A 3.93AB 4.01B 0.011 F = 4.583
Correlation coefficients between SWL & SWFL 0.578** 0.479** 0.713** 0.509**
Self-rated health status
Physical component (PCS) 49.79 48.68 50.54 50.48 0.048# F = 3.062
Mental component (MCS) 52.36 51.36a 52.76ab 53.21b 0.021 F = 3.883
Self-rated economic status 3.74 3.62c 3.82d 3.82d 0.048& H = 6.082
Food-related goal
Eat a healthy diet 4.40 4.54b 4.32a 4.32a 0.010 F = 4.628
Eat a safe diet 4.40 4.53b 4.30a 4.33a 0.013 F = 4.352
Choose food products and dishes that you enjoy eating 4.16 4.24c 4.10d 4.11d 0.021& H = 7.692
Eat your daily meals in nice surroundings 3.98 4.09b 3.92a 3.91a 0.013 F = 4.388
Arrange shopping and preparation of meals so that you do 3.80 3.98B 3.62A 3.74A 0.000 F = 8.497
not need help from others
Eat your meals in the company of other people 3.72 3.82B 3.51A 3.79B 0.001 F = 7.634
Vary your menu and have a wide range of foods and dishes 3.71 3.68 3.73 3.74 0.802 F = 0.220
Be able to cook meals for others 3.60 3.65 3.52 3.61 0.421 F = 0.867
Maintain the cultural traditions of your country or region 3.52 3.59b 3.29a 3.65b 0.005 F = 5.421
in relation to food and meals
Control your weight through your choice of food 2.97 3.15b 2.78a 2.93ab 0.007 F = 5.036
Keep your expenditures on food as low as possible 2.75 2.95c 2.59d 2.68d 0.006& H = 10.221
Choose food products and dishes that are quick and easy to 2.62 2.54 2.73 2.63 0.236 F = 1.447
prepare

Note: The a, b superscripts indicate significantly different means between segments using Tukey post hoc.
The A, B superscripts indicate significantly different means between segments using Dunnett's T3 post hoc.
The c, d superscripts indicate significantly different mean ranks between segments using Dunn’s post hoc test.
& P value from Kruskal-Wallis test.
# No significant differences among the three segments.
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.

Compared with segment 1, this segment together with segment 3 stated
a higher level of satisfaction with their economic status. Compared with
the other two segments, they assigned the least importance to the food-
related goals of ‘eat meals in the company of other people’, ‘maintain
the cultural traditions’ and ‘control weight’.
Segment 3 (less safety and somewhat health concerned) comprised
the highest proportion of male participants and highest proportion of
participants with grandchildren at home. Members in this segment re-
ported the highest level of satisfaction with food-related life and the
highest level of self-rated mental health status. Their satisfaction with
food-related life was positively and moderately related to their life sa-
tisfaction. Compared with segment 1, this segment together segment 2
more believed that ‘keeping low food expenditure’ was not important
goal to their satisfaction with food-related life.
≫ > ≫ Insert Table 4
4. Discussion
Previous studies on the measurement of life satisfaction of the el-
derly in China have focused heavily on the overall life and on mea-
suring the results of health care, living arrangement and social services
(e.g. Shen & Yeatts, 2013; Liu et al., 2015). Little research has in-
vestigated other dimensions of basic needs linked to how old people
evaluate their satisfaction of life. Food is an important domain of Chi-
nese lives considering the relations between food and Chinese people’s
health and safety, social interaction around food, and activities and
daily considerations relating to the procurement, preparation and in-
take of foods. The positive and moderate correlation between partici-
pants’ food-related life satisfaction and their general life satisfaction in
the present study supports the inclusion of food among the important
domains of life that affect the subjective well-being of individuals in
China. The correlation between SWL and SWFL in the present study is
higher than those obtained in European countries by Grunert et al.
(2007) which was 0.36, and in south-American countries by Schnettler
et al. (2012) and Schnettler et al. (2017), which was 0.534 in Chile and
0.394 in Ecuador, implying that food has a potentially greater influence
on the Chinese elderly’s subjective well-being. Considering the in-
creasing concerns on food health and safety among Chinese people,
future studies of Chinese older people’s satisfaction with their food-
related life, its determinants and the effect of their satisfaction with
their food on overall satisfaction with life are therefore called for.
The result that ‘keep your expenditures on food as low as possible’
was not an important food-related goal while ‘eat a healthy diet’ and
‘eat a safe diet’ were important is another noteworthy finding from the
present study. The importance of the goal related to food expenditure of
Chinese elderly differs significantly from the result of Lobos, Schnettler,
Grunert, and Adasme (2017) which was conducted in Chile. One pos-
sible explanation is the overrepresentation of high-education and high-
income groups in the sample, who put more weight on food health and
safety than food price. Another possible explanation for this dis-
crepancy is the lower living standard as measured by the Engel coef-
ficient of Chile compared with China. According to World Bank figures
in 2016, Engel’s coefficient of China was 0.30, which has been con-
sidered close to the well-off line set by the United Nations. An -
improvement in living standards leads to an upgrade in food con-
sumption in China, boosting emerging demand for food health, safety
and better quality. This result is consistent with the Nielsen Global
Health and Ingredient-Sentiment Survey in 2016, which is re-
presentative of online consumers in China mainly 10–39 years old
(CNNIC, 2016), that safety and healthiness have become the top two
attributes that affect Chinese consumers’ decisions on food and price
will no longer be as important as quality and healthiness (Nielsen,
2016). This result demonstrates the evolution of principal contradiction
facing Chinese society in the new era from meeting people’s basic need
to meet their increasing needs for a better life (Xinhua, 2017), which
provides a new perspective for future food-related research on older
consumer group in China.
All of the Cronbach’s α values of the scales of SWFL and segmen-
tation variables were larger than 0.8, indicating that these measures
had good internal consistency (Hair et al., 2006) and well presented the

7
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert
concepts this study explored. In addition, the relationships between the
constructs measured in the study make sense based on both plausibility
and theoretical grounds, supporting the nomological validity of our
measures. We therefore conclude that the questionnaire used was well-
suited to investigate our research question. Three segments of elderly
were identified based on their beliefs on the importance of food health,
safety, freshness and taste in their food-related life. The three segments
differed in their satisfaction with food-related life, self-rated economic
and mental health status, food-related goals and socio-demographic
characteristics gender and presence of grandchildren younger than
12 years. Participants in segment 1 were most interested in food health
and perceived food freshness reported the lowest level of SWFL because
they were most worried about food safety while segment 3 who were
least worried about food safety reported the highest level of SWFL. This
result is in line with the theoretical assumption and implies that the
elderly’s food safety belief might play a more dominant role than other
food attributes beliefs in their satisfaction with food-related life. This
finding matches the current food safety situation in China, as Chinese
people has been increasing their concerns for food safety (Liu, Pieniak,
& Verbeke, 2014) and it is also consistent with the finding that parti-
cipants perceived ‘eat a safe diet’ as the most important goal for their
satisfaction with food-related life. These findings suggest that sup-
porting positive beliefs about food safety will contribute to the Chinese
elderly’s satisfaction with food-related life and also their overall life
satisfaction, given the relation between SWFL and SWL. Chinese con-
sumers expect authorities to disclose information about food safety
incidents timely and accurately (Zhang, 2017). They hope to see more
efforts from governments to improve food safety in China, for example,
to push tougher punishments on the violators of food safety regulations,
set stricter standards as well as supervision on food production and
build a food traceability system for the entire food supply chain (Daily,
2015).
A higher level of satisfaction with food-related life among the el-
derly was found associated with being female, living with grand-
children, better perceived economic situation and better perceived self-
rated health. There were no significant differences in terms of age,
education, income and living arrangement among the three segments.
For age, this result is consistent with previous studies which report no
consistent independent relation of age with subjective well-being in the
general population (Diener, 1984) and among the older people in
particular, if controlling the factors which often accompany aging, like
the decreased health or loss of a spouse (Larson, 1978). Furthermore,
even when not controlling for those factors, Larson (1978) finds that the
decline in subjective well-being with age among the elderly is slight.
The result that there was no significant difference in terms of living
arrangement among the three segments is consistent with the study of
Chen and Short (2008), which found no significant differences in terms
of subjective well-being of the Chinese elderly between those living
only with a spouse and those living with children, and also in line with
the study of Wang, Chen, and Han (2014), which found that married
couples living with children and married couples living independently
did not differ significantly with respect to life satisfaction. This result
demonstrates the trend that more seniors in China prefer to live sepa-
rately from their children to avoid the conflicts with adult children and
enjoy a better quality of life. However, this result is in contrast with
previous studies which find that living alone is associated with lower
life satisfaction among the elderly in China (e.g. Wang et al., 2014). A
possible explanation could be that the Chinese government has been
accelerating the development of community-based and institution-
based care services (including dining room, canteens or meal delivery
(Zhou & Walker, 2016)) as support or supplementary to traditional
family-based care for the elderly (Feng, Liu, Guan, & Mor, 2012). The
availability of community-based supports and services has been found
associated with a good quality of life of the elderly in China (Zhang,
Yeager, & Hou, 2018), which might increase the level of SWFL of the
elderly who live alone.
8
Food Quality and Preference 79 (2020) 103775
Goals and expectation should be taken into account to understand
the relationship between income and subjective well-being (Diener,
Lucas, & Oishi, 2009). The elderly with more income might have higher
goals for or expectations on their food-related lives, for example, eating
a safer diet that can not be realized or met due to the current food safety
situation in China, thus may not have a higher level of SWFL than their
counterparts with low income. The same explanation could be applied
to the relation of the elderly’s education and SWFL, since education
could raise expectations, but it may not yield higher subjective well-
being if the expectations can not be met (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith,
1999). In addition, Diener et al. (1999) points out that the direct effect
of education per se on subjective well-being is small while much of the
relation between education and subjective well-being is accounted for
by the covariation of education and income. Thus, the effect of edu-
cation and income as a covariate in the elderly’s SWFL should be con-
sidered in future work.
Consumer goals will determine which product attributes are most
important to them for attaining satisfaction (Garbarino & Johnson,
2001) which was confirmed by the result that segment 1 who perceived
‘eating a healthy diet’ and ‘eating a safe diet’ more important goals to
achieve satisfaction with food-related life correspondingly added more
weight to the importance of food safety and was more interested in food
health than the other two segments. Understanding the relationship
between beliefs about food quality attributes, food-related goals and
satisfaction with food-related life is useful to gain insight into how the
elderly use food quality attributes to achieve satisfaction with food-
related life. In essence, this association reveals the possible reasons that
underlie the elderly’s satisfaction with food-related life. Consumers’
food-related goals impact their perception of food well-being and the
strategies they adopt to advance food well-being (Bublitz et al., 2013).
However, the impacts of the goals older people have on their satisfac-
tion with food-related life interact with food-related resources available
to them and these resources’ relevance to food-related goals (Dean
et al., 2008). Resources can be seen as means that one can use to
achieve goals. As people age, their living circumstances and resources
can change, such that their functional ability to perform activities of
daily living deteriorate. The elderly, especially those in very advanced
age, tend to have difficulties in leading a normal life by themselves,
thus their dependency or need for assistance increases. The rise of
‘empty-nest’ elderly in China has been weakening the role of family as a
main resource in caring for the dependent elderly, thus aging with
dependency requires new forms of assistance that provide care to the
aging population. For example, food-related services from public or
private sectors such as a supply of meal with good taste for the elderly
or providing a nice place where empty nest elders could eat together
could contribute to their well-being (Liu et al., 2015). To improve older
people’s satisfaction with food in China, future work should identify
food-related resources including both material (e.g. income), social
(e.g. skills) and personal (e.g. family and friends) aspects relevant to
Chinese elderly.
The limitations of this study include the non-probabilistic and non-
representative nature of the sample. Low income and low education
consumers are underrepresented in the sample, as are elderly con-
sumers with high level of dependency. In addition, there is a possible
social desirability bias resulting from the self-reported measures and
interviewer biases. Also, given the exploratory and cross-sectional
nature of the study, causal conclusions on the impacts of Chinese el-
derly’s beliefs about food health, safety, freshness and taste on their
satisfaction with food-related life can not be drawn from the present
study.
5. Conclusion
The major findings of this study are that satisfaction with food-re-
lated life is moderately and positively related to life satisfaction of the
elderly in China and that this correlation is higher than in other
R. Liu and K.G. Grunert
countries. This result implies that food is an important life domain with
great potential influence on Chinese elderly’s life satisfaction and that
the food domain therefore deserves more attention from future re-
search. Another noteworthy finding is that it is food safety and health
that are the major concerns of Chinese elderly. In this sense, this study
provides evidence on the ongoing upgrade in food consumption in
China, that Chinese consumers need more healthy and safe food to
increase life quality and to have a better life. The identification of three
distinct segments on the basis of the elderly’s beliefs on the importance
of food health, safety, freshness and taste in their food-related life de-
monstrates the heterogeneity in Chinese elderly’s perception of their
food-related life. Last, the association between beliefs about food
quality attributes, food-related goals and satisfaction with food-related
life reveals the possible determinants on the elderly’s satisfaction with
food-related life, which needs to be confirmed by future empirical
studies.
Acknowledgements
Rongduo Liu thanks Huayan Wang, Meiling Zhou and other students
for their hard work on data collection.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests and that
the present research was conducted in the absence of any commercial
or financial relationships that could be construed as potential conflicts
of interest.
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