ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition, Psychology and Brain Health
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1624390
Sociopsychological determinants of functional foods consumption in China: based on the theory of the planned behaviour expansion model
Provisionally accepted
- Shanxi Institute for Functional Food, Shanxi Agriculture University, Taiyuan, China
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This study investigates the determinants of Chinese consumers' purchase intentions and behaviour towards functional foods, incorporating health consciousness and trust into the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual framework. An online quota-sample survey was conducted on 1,011 Chinese consumers. Structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Three main findings were drawn based on the analysis: (1) Health consciousness significantly improved consumers' attitudes towards functional foods (β=0.921, P<0.001); (2) Consumption intention was predominantly predicted by attitude (β=0.751, P<0.001), followed by perceived behavioural control (β=0.148, P<0.05) and trust (β=0.115, P<0.001). (3) Contrary to theoretical expectations, the positive influence of subjective norm (β=0.222, P>0.05) on purchase intention is not significant, and the purchase intention did not significantly influence behaviour. Notably, perceived behavioural control (β=0.841, P<0.001) emerged as the strongest direct predictor of consumption behaviour. This research empirically validates the explanatory power of the expanded Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) in the context of functional food consumption. The results establish a more detailed conceptual framework for understanding consumption mechanisms, while providing evidence-based strategies for market development and public health interventions.
Keywords: Functional Foods, Health consciousness, Trust, Theory of Planned Behaviour, purchase intention
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jia and Liu. 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: Shuang Liu, Shanxi Institute for Functional Food, Shanxi Agriculture University, Taiyuan, China
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