Baby boomers' food shopping habits. Relationships with demographics and personal values

The purpose of this study was to examine baby boomers’ food shopping behaviours and to investigate their relationships with demographics and personal values. A questionnaire concerning food shopping behaviours, personal values and demographics was mailed to a random sample of 2975 people aged 40–70 years in Victoria, Australia. Usable questionnaires of 1031 were obtained. Structural equation modelling was employed for data analyses. The analyses revealed that demographics and personal values influenced shopping behaviours via different pathways among male and female baby boomers. For example, self-direction positively impacted on shopping planning for men but negatively influenced price minimization for women. Among women only, age was positively related to shopping planning and negatively to price minimization. Thus, both personal values and demographics influenced baby boomers’ shopping behaviours. Since values are more likely to be amenable to change than demographics, segmentation of the population via value orientations would facilitate targeted interventions to promote healthy food shopping.

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Baby boomers' reasons for choosing specific food shops

Purpose – Baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) are approaching retirement and there is concern about their preparation for their future health and wellbeing. Food shopping is likely to play a major role in their future lives. The purpose of this paper is to examine their reasons for choosing to buy food from particular shops and whether demographic characteristics and health status were associated with them.

Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey was conducted among a random sample of 1,037 people aged between 40 and 71 years in Victoria, Australia. Respondents were asked to indicate, from a list, their reasons for choosing to shop at particular food outlets. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationships between respondents' demographics and health status and their reasons for shopping at the food stores.

Findings – Multivariate analysis showed that the reasons the respondents reported in choosing shops fell into four groups: saving, convenience, quality and healthy foods, and user-friendly environment. Saving was negatively related to income, age, level of education and also linked with country of birth, religious affiliation, and marital status. Convenience was negatively associated with age and also related to health status and religious affiliation. Quality/healthy food products were positively related to age but negatively associated with body mass index, and also linked to country of birth. User-friendly environment was negatively associated with income and education and related to gender and religious affiliation.

Originality/value – The paper's results show that stores could provide more information, perhaps as signage, to their recycling and health information facilities, particularly in low socio-economic status areas. Furthermore, the social status and religious associations confirm the view that shopping reflects broad societal affiliations among baby boomers. Shopping centres can be used to provide support for health and environmental sustainability promotions.

Baby boomers' desires for future health and food services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify food and health services desired by baby boomers and to examine their likely antecedents.

Design/methodology/approach – A random sample of baby boomers in Victoria, Australia (n=1,108) completed a postal survey and rated the desirability of 13 post retirement food and health services.

Findings – The strongest demand was expressed for low cost fruit and vegetables, 24-hour GP services, environmentally friendly foods, and friendly places to meet friends and exercise, among others. Generally, psychographic variables were key predictors of demand for social (health) services, food services, and vitamin pills and herbal remedies. Demand for food services was associated with universalism values.

Research limitations/implications – The cross-sectional design prevents causal attributions; however, the findings suggest that baby boomers' demand for services falls into three groups, which are related to their psychographic characteristics.

Originality/value – Consideration of these desired services may facilitate the planning of future health and food services for this broad age group.

Boom and bust in Australian screen policy: 10BA, the Film Finance Corporation, and Hollywood's 'race to the bottom'.

In recent years, a narrative has emerged in the Australian popular media about the box office 'unpopularity' of Australian feature films and the 'failure' of the domestic screen industry. This article explores the recent history of Australian screen policy with particular reference to the '10BA' tax incentive of the 1980s; the Film Finance Corporation of Australia (FFC), a government screen agency established in 1988 to bring investment bank-style portfolio management to Australia's screen industry; and local production incentive policies pursed by Australian state governments in a chase for Hollywood's runaway production.

We argue the 10BA incentive catalysed an unsustainable bubble in Australian production, while its policy successor, the FFC, fundamentally failed in its stated mission of 'commercial' screen financing (over its 20-year lifespan, the FFC invested 1.345 billion Australian dollars for 274.2 million Australian dollars recouped - a cumulative return of negative 80 percent). For their part, private investors in Australian films discovered that the screen production process involved high levels of risk.

Foreign-financed production also proved highly volatile, due to the vagaries of trade exposure, currency fluctuations and tax arbitrage. The result of these macro and micro-economic factors often structural and cross-border in nature was that Australia's screen industry failed to develop the local investment infrastructure required to finance a sustainable, non-subsidised local sector.

Reluctant relaxation: The end of the iron ore export embargo and the origins of Australia's mining boom, 1960-1966

The Australian government embargoed any export of iron ore between 1938 and 1960. Joseph Lyons’s government imposed the ban on the eve of World War II for a strategic reason: to prevent the Japanese from importing ore from Yampi Sound in Western Australia. Another consideration, which underpinned the retention of the ban for more than two decades, was the Commonwealth of Australia's perception that Australia's iron ore reserves were limited. In the space of a few years after the partial lifting of the embargo in 1960, world-class reserves of iron ore, mainly in Western Australia, were discovered. Mined and exported from the mid-1960s, iron ore would become, in time, Australia’s best export earner. This article explores the reasons behind the lifting of the ban and how the relaxation of the embargo in stages between 1960 and 1966 shaped the emerging iron ore industry and therefore Australia’s mining boom.

‘Waiting-to-see’ if the baby will come : findings from a qualitative study in Kafa Zone, Ethiopia

Background: Much of the quantitative research on maternal mortality in developing countries focuses on the need for health service interventions such as skilled attendants at birth and emergency obstetric and newborn care. A growing number of studies document the need for a more comprehensive perspective and include the macrostructural, that is, the social, cultural, economic and political determinants of health.
Objectives: To examine the salient aspects of birth at home and variables that influence decision making around transfer to a health facility during prolonged/obstructed labor.
Methods: Ethnography using participant observation and semi-structured interviews was conducted in 2007. A total of 56 mothers in Kafa Zone were selected: 20 in-depth interviews with women who gave birth at home; four who gave birth in a health facility; and 32 during antenatal care. Interviews were also conducted with health staff from Bonga Hospital and 15 health centers or health posts. Analysis followed a process of data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing/verification with the data organized around key themes.
Results: Most women gave birth at home assisted by their neighbor, mother, mother-in-law, or husband. It is likely women who gave birth at home feel ‘safe’ because that is where birth normally takes place and where they feel supported by close relatives and neighbors. Prolonged labor or ‘waiting-to-see’ if the baby would come was somewhat normalized and resulted in considerable delays to seeking assistance. Women felt it was ‘unsafe’ to go to a health facility because of the very real possibility that they would die on the way.
Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of educating the local communities to recognize pregnancy related risks and to develop and implement appropriate responses, especially early referral, as communities play an important mobilizing role to health services.

Formative evaluation of baby makes 3

Baby Makes 3 was originally developed by Whitehorse Community Health Service and the City of Whitehorse as a program which seeks to prevent violence by promoting respect and equality between couples who have recently become parents for the first time. This is a significant but often stressful event in the life of families and it is not uncommon for couples to adopt ways of relating which reflect gendered norms and foster inequality.
By being offered as a program to all first-time parents by maternal and child health staff, the program in Whitehorse managed to engage with couples at this critical time, many of whom found the program enabled them to adopt greater equality in their relationships. As such, the initial Baby Makes 3 program has been found to be an effective and cost-efficient violence prevention strategy (Flynn, 2011).
The introduction of Baby Makes 3 to the Great South Coast Region is the first time this program has been implemented in a non-metropolitan setting. In addition to the original program aims, a number of additional aims and activities have been added, with the new project being known as Baby Makes 3 Plus.
Programs developed in urban contexts often face different challenges when implemented in rural and regional settings. Likewise, the factors for facilitating success may vary from those in an urban setting (Maidment and Bay, 2012). Hence, this formative evaluation aims to provide feedback on the initial implementation of the original Baby Makes 3 program in the Great South Coast Region with the expectation this will enable problems with implementation and/or opportunities for further enhancement of outcomes to be identified and appropriate action taken.