Thailand's food retail transition: supermarket and fresh market effects on diet quality and health
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the food retail transition underway in Thailand, a transitional middle-income setting, is associated with increased consumption of processed foods high in fat, salt and energy. Such “problem foods” are important risks for avoidable cardio-vascular disease and diabetes burdens.
Design/methodology/approach
The source population were members of the nationwide Thai Cohort Study (TCS) followed since 2005 (n=87,151) for a study of the health-risk transition. For this report we used a multi-region sub-sample (n=1,516) of TCS members responding to an additional questionnaire about food environments, shopping patterns and food consumption. By using a TCS sub-sample we gained access to four years (2005-2009) of longitudinal observations on a wide array of variables related to health and wellbeing from an informative group.
Findings
Overall 85 per cent of the sample now have access to supermarkets; ten years ago the figure was 47 per cent, and when aged ten years, 5 per cent. Now half the participants regularly visit supermarkets and convenience stores, especially urban dwellers with higher incomes. Frequent shopping at supermarkets and convenience stores associated with consumption of six “problem foods” (soft drinks, snack foods, processed meats, western style bakery items, instant foods and deep fried foods). Frequent fresh market shopping was associated with increased vegetable intake. There was no association between food shopping and body mass index , diabetes or hypertension but supermarket shopping was related to hyperlipidaemia.
Research limitations/implications
Modernization of food retailing is changing Thai diets and creating diet-related health risks.
Originality/value
The paper addresses a knowledge gap on links between modernizing food retail in Asia and consumption of unhealthy foods, revealing strong linkage in transitional Thailand.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
© Kelly M, Seubsman S, Banwell C, Dixon J and Sleigh A.
search was supported by the International Collaborative Research Grants Scheme with joint grants from the Wellcome Trust UK (GR071587MA) and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC268055) and a Global Health grant from the NHMRC (585426). Neither the NHMRC nor the Wellcome Trust had any part in the design, analysis or writing of this paper. The authors thank the staff at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) who assisted with student contact and the STOU students who are participating in the cohort study. The authors also thank Kawin Thinkamrop and his team from Khon Kaen University for guiding us successfully through the data processing.
Ethics approval for the research was provided by the Australian National University Human Research Ethics Committee (protocols: 2011/216 and 2009/570) and the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University Research and Development Institute (0522/10). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Citation
Kelly, M., Seubsman, S.-a., Banwell, C., Dixon, J. and Sleigh, A. (2014), "Thailand's food retail transition: supermarket and fresh market effects on diet quality and health", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 No. 7, pp. 1180-1193. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-08-2013-0210
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Authors