Fruit consumption determinants among young adults in Italy

Knowing fruit consumption determinants is essential to improve interventions aiming at stimulating fruit intake in young population. This paper analyses young adults attitude and behaviour towards fruit consumption. We performed a survey on Italian university students (n = 723) to explain fruit consumption behaviour and determinants based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The importance of determinants was evaluated with multi-group structural equation modelling (SEM). The TPB variables (attitudes, subjective norms and perceptions of control) explain 53% of intention to consume at least 200 g/d of fruit, and 16% of reported fruit consumption. The explained variance of fruit consumption increases to 18% if we include habits as a mediator between intentions and behaviour. In this case, intention and PBC become relatively less important in explaining fruit consumption. This suggests that stronger habits result in less conscious behaviour, and that interventions to increase fruit consumption should improve fruit availability and develop individuals’ ability to overcome barriers. Multi-group analysis has shown the moderator effect of different socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, living status, shopping habits, body mass index (BMI) and area of study in influencing intentions and behaviour. These results point to possible tailored strategies of public and private interventions to improve fruit consumption among young adults.