ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1574726
This article is part of the Research TopicUltra-Processed Foods: Impact on Dietary Patterns, Health Outcomes, and Policy InterventionsView all 4 articles
How Disease Threat Affects the Purchase Intention of Ultra-Processed Foods Among High-Pressure Workers
Provisionally accepted
- 1North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Sichuan Provincial primary health service development research center, Sichuan, China
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Introduction: The continuous outbreak of global epidemics has highlighted the impact of disease threats on consumer behavior. While prior research has examined the influence of disease threats on consumer decisions, few studies have explored their specific effect on the purchase intention of ultra-processed foods among high-pressure workers. This study examines how disease threats affect the purchase intention of ultra-processed foods among this group. Methods: We conducted three experiments with 828 participants, employing Process Model 4 and Model 1 to analyze the relationship between disease threats, health perception, fear, and the intention to purchase ultra-processed foods. Result: Our findings indicate that disease threats significantly reduce the purchase intention of ultra-processed foods among high-pressure workers, with health perception serving as a mediator of this relationship. Additionally, fear interacts with disease threats to further shape purchase behavior. Conclusion: This research offers novel insights into the consumption patterns of high-pressure workers under disease threats, providing theoretical guidance for public health policies and marketing strategies.
Keywords: Disease threat, High-pressure workers, Perception of health, Ultra-Processed foods, Fear, purchase intention
Received: 11 Feb 2025; Accepted: 10 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Yang and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Dajun Yang, Sichuan Provincial primary health service development research center, Sichuan, China
Yifan Huang, North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.