Primary Research Group Project: Understanding Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Sugary Beverages
Understanding Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Sugary Beverages
Introduction
To better understand the consumption of sugary beverages in our community and assess nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to these drinks, a total of 12 questions were asked to participants. The survey included a variety of questions relating to demographic circumstances, mainly pertaining to age, educational attainment, and gender identity. Our research group, consisting of five members, looked at potential reasons why a person might choose the beverage they do. We also looked into how often the respondents drank sweetened versus unsweetened beverages so that we could understand sugar consumption. This kind of information that was gathered is important because it shows us the relationship that different age groups have with sugary beverages compared to water and how it affects what they drink. We could use this information to provide educational opportunities around beverages and the importance of understanding the effects of sugary drinks.
Method
A survey was created in Google Forms, made up of 10 multiple choice questions and 2 short answer questions. Our group gathered questions from previous questionnaires from reliable sources that specifically addressed nutrition and health concerns. Initially, each member contributed 12 questions each, and together we refined and narrowed them down to a final set of 12 questions total. Additionally, we made necessary adjustments to ensure that the wording of the questions was easily understandable for respondents. All these questions were put in a Google Document and cited the data that was pulled from other professional surveys. All of the information from the Google Document was inputted directly into a Google Form, the initial survey instrument was edited and put through a test run by our own group members before it was finalized by the Google Form coordinator. We had to collect a minimum of 50 responses. Each member took responsibility for sharing the Google Form link to ensure that we reached and exceeded the minimum response goal. The survey was open from May 5, 2023, and closed on May 7, 2023. After giving our respondents five days to complete the survey, we received 82 total responses, but one of those 82 did not agree to the initial consent form. Overall, a total of 81 individuals participated in our survey, their responses were collected and provided important information to make our conclusions.
Demographic Characteristics
Table 1 discusses the demographic characteristics of the participants in the survey. The questions were answered similarly. Over half of the participants identified as Cisgender Female (58.7%). One-third of the participants identified as Cisgender Male (30.0%). There was a small number of persons identified as Non-Binary (3.7%) and Transgender Female (1.2%). There was also a small percentage of people who did not say what their gender identity is (6.3%). A majority of people were in the age ranges of 21-24 (35.8%), 30 or older (28.4%) or 18-20 (23.5%). 8.6% of participants were between the ages of 25-29 and 3.7% of participants were under the age of 18. This table also discusses the education levels. A majority of the participants had completed some college or technical training (43.2%) or a completion of a Bachelor’s degree (29.6%). 11.1% of participants had a completion of a High School Diploma or a GED and 12.3% have an Advanced Degree. A very small percentage of participants had no completion of high school (3.7%).
Gender Identity of Respondents
To start our survey we asked a few questions regarding our respondents’ demographics. We asked them to answer which gender identity they identified as. We specifically asked about gender identity rather than sex because people identify more than what sex they were assigned at birth and felt by giving more options than simply male or female, we were able to be inclusive to everyone participating in our survey. The majority of respondents were cisgender females representing nearly 60% of our survey. Cisgender males represented 30%, with the remaining being made up of either transgender females, non-binary, or people who would rather not say.
Age of Participants
We also wanted to get the age of those participating in our survey. We offered several age ranges with a conscious decision to group those below and those over the age of 21 into different categories knowing we would be asking a question regarding alcohol consumption in our survey. Not surprisingly, the largest proportion of our respondents, accounting for nearly 36%, fell within the 21 through 24 year-old category. 30 or older was second with a little over 28%. 18-20 year-olds represented about 24%, 25-29 year-olds were under 9% and the under 18 age group not even hitting 4% of the total respondents.
Educational Attainment
Our final demographics question related to the highest level of educational attainment achieved. Matching perfectly with our under-18 group was no completion of high school. It can be assumed that this is because they’ve yet to reach the natural progression of their schooling to earn their high school diploma. Matching again with most of the ages being at or beyond college age, “some college or technical training” had the highest numbers, representing more than 43% of respondents. Close to 30% of respondents had earned a Bachelor’s Degree, then our numbers fell off dramatically with just a little over 12% having an advanced degree and 11% with a high school diploma/GED.
Knowledge
Table 2 discusses the knowledge of beverages of the participants. Well over half of the participants believe that they know some about beverages (61.7%). A third of the participants believe that they know a lot of beverage knowledge (30.9%). A small number of participants believe they know everything (3.7%) or they don’t know anything at all about beverages (3.7%).
Knowledge of The Health Impacts of Drinking Sugary Beverages
We asked what level of knowledge our respondents had about the impact of drinking sugary drinks with the idea of being able to compare their answers with their behaviors surrounding sugary drinks. The hope is that someone who claims to have a high level of understanding would show they have low consumption of sugary drinks, but we thought it would be interesting if the opposite showed in our data as well. We broke the possible answers into 4 categories: I know everything, I know a lot, I know some, and I don’t know anything at all. Interestingly the same percentage of respondents (3.7%) answered on the two ends of the spectrum. 31% answered that they knew a lot, and more than 61% said they knew some. This graph shows public health officials have work to do in educating people about the impacts of sugary drinks.
Attitudes
Table 3 discusses the attitudes of participants towards beverages. 66% of participants said they believe water is a beverage of choice in a restaurant, leaving 34% believing that it is not a beverage of choice. Most of the participants are concerned about how sugary beverages can affect their health (60%). However, 40% of the participants are not concerned about how sugary beverages affect their health.
Water is a Beverage of Choice in a Restaurant
We wanted to know how people viewed water in comparison to other drink options. Our question gave options comparing it to soda, coffee, tea, etc. We had a total of 70 people who answered this write-in question and articulated a definitive yes or no response. Many of those then elaborated on why they answered the way they did. 66% responded that yes, water is in fact a beverage, while 34% answered that they did not consider it to be a beverage.
Concerned About How Sugary Beverages Can Affect One’s Health
This question was related to our question about people’s views on their own knowledge level of sugary beverages. Our reasoning was that it should absolutely be a concern and we wanted to compare any possible “no” answers with someone who claimed to have a high level of knowledge about the impact of sugary drinks on their health. Of the 73 responses we got for this question 68 had answered the question with definitive yes or no answers. The other 5 put things like “N/A” or “water and sprite” which didn’t really make sense for what we were asking so we tossed them out. Of the 68 responses, 60% replied yes, while 40% did not have any concerns about sugary beverages relating to the impact on their health.
Behavior
In Table 4, it was found that 42% of participants drink an average of 32-64 ounces of water daily and 30.9% drink an average of 16-32 ounces of water daily. There were a decent amount of participants drinking more than 64 ounces of water daily, 22.2%. A small percentage drink less than 16 ounces of water daily, 4.9%. About a third of participants drink sugary beverages several times a week, 31.3%, over a quarter of participants drink sugary beverages every day, 28.7%, 15% consume sugary beverages several times a month, 13.8% drink sugary beverages once a week, and lastly, 11.3% of the participants rarely or never consume drinks with added sugar. Looking at sugary beverage consumption, 54.3% of participants stated they drink less than 8 ounces of sweetened beverages daily, and 30.9% drink 8-16 ounces of sugary beverages daily. 8.6% drink 16-32 ounces, 4.9% drink 32-48 ounces, 1.2% drink 48-64 ounces, and 0.0% drink more than 64 ounces of sugary beverages every day. Not including water, a majority of persons drink less than 8 ounces of unsweetened beverages a day (51.9%), or 8-16 ounces a day (32.1%). 8.6% drink 16-32 ounces, 4.9% drink 32-48 ounces, 2.5% drink 48-64 ounces, and 0.0% drink more than 64 ounces of unsweetened beverages daily. Although our survey solely focused on sugar consumption, we did include a question regarding alcohol consumption. When asked about weekly alcohol consumption, a majority of participants either have less than 1 serving (35.0%) or 1-3 servings (26.3%) of alcohol a week. Less than a quarter of people do not consume any alcohol (20.0%). 16.2% of participants say they have 4-8 servings of alcohol a week, 1.2% have 9-14 servings of alcohol a week, and 1.2% have more than 14 savings of alcohol a week.
Daily Water Intake
To gather information about certain behaviors with beverage choices we asked respondents to answer a question about their average daily water intake. To make it as clear as we could our answers had how many ounces and how many cups of water that was. For example, less than 16 oz or 2 cups was the first choice. Thankfully, that was our lowest result with less than 5% of respondents answering that category, but even 4.9% seems high considering that is less than one bottle of water each day. More than 64 oz or 8 cups represented the next highest response rate at a little over 22%. A common recommendation is to drink at least 8 cups of water each day, but this is a bit misleading as it doesn’t have to be pure water people are drinking to reach those levels so hopefully 5% of respondents are getting healthy fluid intake elsewhere. More than 30% of respondents answered they take in an average of 16-32 oz or 2-4 cups of water per day. 42% answered they drink between 32-64 oz or 4-8 cups of water per day on average.
Consumption of Drinks with Added Sugar
The next couple of questions went hand in hand as we asked about how often, then the frequency of drinking beverages with added sugar. The first question asked on average how often do respondents consume drinks with added sugar. Every day and Several Times a Week were our top 2 answers with 29% and 31% respectively. Once a Week, Several Times a Month, and Rarely or Never were all significantly lower at 14%, 15%, and 11% respectively.
Daily Sweetened Beverage Consumption
This question answered how much of a sugary beverage was being consumed. It went hand in hand with the previous question because if someone answered that they drank a sugary beverage every day, our hope was they’d at least be keeping the amount at low levels. Comparing the two graphs side by side shows that to be true with the overwhelming majority of respondents answering they drank less than 8 oz or 1 cup of a sweetened beverage each day. In fact, more than 54% of respondents drank that amount. 31% of respondents drank between 8-16 oz or 2-4 cups. Respondents didn’t even combine for 15% of the total who answered for the remaining 4 possible answers ranging from 16-32 oz, 32-48 oz, 48-64 oz, or More than 64 oz.
Daily Unsweetened Beverage Consumption
We specified in this question to not include water when answering about their unsweetened beverage consumption. That way we wouldn’t get a crossover of answers from the Daily Water Intake question that came in the survey before. Less than 8 oz represented more than half of all respondents at just under 52% of the total answers. 32% answered they consumed between 8-16 oz, and again seeing a steep dropoff to less than 9% drinking between 16-32 oz. Less than 5% drink between 32-48 oz and about half that number again at 2.5% reported drinking between 48-64 oz on a daily basis. Not one respondent answered they drank more than 64 oz each day. Considering the numbers for the amount of daily water intake were much higher, I expect that when people aren’t drinking sweetened beverages, they are choosing to drink water.
Weekly Alcohol Consumption
Lastly, even though the main purpose of our survey was about sugary beverages we wanted to have at least one question about how many servings of alcoholic beverages people were drinking on average. That’s not to say that many if not most alcoholic beverages contain sugar, but due to them being regulated by a different governmental agency, alcoholic beverages are not required by law to give their nutritional facts. Our question therefore wasn’t about the sugar content because that would be too hard for most people to figure out or know offhand about, rather we defined what a serving of alcohol was and then asked how many servings per week on average respondents were drinking. A serving is defined as 1.5 oz of hard liquor, 5 oz of wine, and/or 12 oz of beer. We were also careful in how we broke down our serving ranges. Possible answers were: none, less than 1 serving, 1-3 servings, 4-8 servings, 9-14 servings, and more than 14 servings. It is recommended that women not drink more than 3 drinks in a day or more than 7 drinks per week, while it is recommended that men not drink more than 4 drinks in a day or 14 per week. We did not explain this in our survey, but wanted the options to have breakdowns that fit with those guidelines. Meaning we didn’t want our high end to be more than 12 drinks per week (which it was at one point in our drafts) because respondents could be in that category, but there’d be no way for us to know if they were beyond the weekly recommended or not. 35% of respondents answered that they consumed less than 1 serving of alcohol per week. 26% between 1-3 servings, 20% answered they didn’t drink any servings at all, and 16% responded they consumed between 4-8 servings. 1.2% which equaled 1 respondent total said they drank between 9-14 servings and another said they drank more than 14 servings per week.
Conclusion
Findings
In terms of gender identity, we found that the most prevalent response, accounting for nearly 60% of participants, was cisgender female. Turning to age, our findings indicated that the age range of 21-24 had the highest representation, comprising 36% of respondents. This suggests that college-age students were the most likely to have either received or responded to our survey. As for educational attainment, the results aligned with the age range findings, as “some college or technical training” was the most common level of education reported by over 43% of participants, given the substantial portion within the typical college age range. When asked about one’s knowledge of the health impacts of drinking sugary beverages, the majority of the responses ranged in the “I know a lot” answer (31%) and the “I knew some’’ response (61%) instigating the need for more education within this area. We wanted to collect qualitative data asking individuals to provide their point of view as to whether or not they have any concerns about the impact of sugary beverages on their health. As the group had initially assumed would happen, the majority (60%) of the 68 definitive responses to this question were yes. These concerns ranged anywhere from actual sugar intake concerns in the diet to concerns about medical implications such as high blood pressure. It lets us know that people are definitely aware of the impacts but there is also room for growth. This is a great opportunity for changes to begin at an organizational or community level since we found that our biggest demographic group was females within the college age range. Regarding daily water intake, the most common response, accounting for 42% of participants, indicated an average intake of 16-32 oz of water per day. This data may be slightly misconstrued because we did not clarify that other beverages contained water and could be counted in this response so people may have only been thinking about their pure water intake rate. As a result, participants might have focused solely on their pure water intake rate. Moving on to daily sweetened beverage consumption, we were pleased to find that the majority of respondents (54%) consumed less than 8 oz of sweetened beverages per day, followed by 31% reporting consumption between 8-16 oz. This suggests that many participants understand the recommendation to limit their daily intake of sugary beverages. Regarding daily unsweetened beverage consumption, we obtained similarly positive results. The majority of respondents (52%) reported consuming less than 8 oz of unsweetened beverages per day, with the second-highest category (32%) falling within the 8-16 oz range. This indicates that when considering daily water intake, individuals are opting for water when they are not consuming sweetened beverages. Moving on to the question on weekly alcohol consumption, although our alcohol question did not relate directly to sugar intake we felt it was important to consider what people were drinking as another option instead of water. In conclusion, our behavior findings shed light on the respondents’ attitudes and choices regarding beverage consumption.
Appendix Table
Quantitative Data Analysis
Reference Table 1, Figure 1: Demographics Which of the following most closely matches your highest level of education? No completion of high school education 3.7% (3 respondents) High school diploma/GED 11.1% (9 respondents) Some college or technical training 43.2% (35 respondents) Bachelor’s degree 29.6% (25 respondents) Advanced Degree 12.3% (10 respondents)
Reference Table 1, Figure 2: What is your gender identity? Cisgender Male 30.0% (24 respondents) Cisgender Female 58.7% (47 respondents) Transgender Male 0.0% (0 respondents) Transgender Female 1.2% (1 respondent) Non-Binary 3.7% (3 respondents) Other 0.0% (0 respondents) Rather Not Say 6.3% (5 respondents)
Reference Table 1, Figure 3: What is your age range? Under 18 3.7% (3 respondents) 18-20 23.5% (19 respondents) 21-24 35.8% (29 respondents) 25-29 8.6% (7 respondents) 30 or older 28.4% (23 respondents)
Qualitative Data Analysis
Reference Table 2, Figure 5: Q: When ordering in a restaurant, do you consider water a beverage of choice the same as soda, coffee, tea, etc. Please explain.
Theme 1: A majority of respondents believe water is a beverage of choice. Exemplar Quote: “Yes, even though it is not a sweet beverage. But I still consider it being a beverage since it is something that one can enjoy and drink.”
Theme 2: Many respondents do not consider water as a beverage of choice when ordering at a restaurant. Exemplar Quote: “No, because water does not show up on the menu like soda, coffee, and tea do. Also, you don’t have to pay for water at a restaurant, but you do have to pay for other drinks.”
Theme 3: Many respondents order water and another beverage when at a restaurant. Exemplar Quote: “I usually always get water and something else to drink as well.”
Reference Table 2, Figure 6: Q: Do you have any concerns relating to the impact of sugary beverages on your health? Please explain.
Theme 1: Most respondents do have concerns about the impact of sugary beverages. Exemplar Quote: “Yes, I worry about the effect on my bodily health, particularly dental health when drinking sugary beverages.”
Theme 2: There were many respondents who were not concerned about the impact of sugary beverages on their health. Exemplar Quote: “I am not concerned with the impact of the sugary beverages because I don’t think I consume enough of them for it to be bad for my health.”
Theme 3: Some respondents said they know it has poor impacts on their health, but they are not concerned about it. Exemplar Quote: “The Dutch rebels really are fueling my sugar addiction but at this rate it’s like a reward :).”.