Methodological Challenges in Assessing the Food Marketing Environment of Target Segments

“Obesogenic” environments that encourage excess consumption of food and/or discourage physical activity have been implicated as a contributing factor to obesity. In the United States, although obesity is population wide, it is not equally distributed among socio-demographic groups. This presentation will discuss conceptual and methodological challenges related to assessing the marketing environments of specific consumer segments. We will draw from several projects related to an on-going community based social marketing research program. We integrate insights across projects to propose specific research strategies. We describe how future research on the “street-level’ contexts of target segments, including the marketing environment, can support consumer research that generates practical solutions to contribute to the positive transformation of communities.

Citation:

Sonya Grier and Shiriki Kumanyika (2009) ,"Methodological Challenges in Assessing the Food Marketing Environment of Target Segments", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 143-145.