Food Involvement Scale

What it measures

Measures the degree of importance food has in a person's life — encompassing interest in cooking and preparing food, enjoyment of eating, use of food as a social vehicle, and food-related centrality. High food involvement predicts engagement with food labelling, organic and premium food purchase, and food tourism. Widely used in food marketing, nutrition, and hospitality research.

Response format

Likert (1–7, strongly disagree to strongly agree)

Scale items

• When I eat out, I consider it an enjoyable experience.
• I really enjoy food shopping.
• When I am cooking at home, I enjoy experimenting with new recipes.
• I enjoy cooking for friends and family.
• Food is very important in my life.
• I enjoy learning new cooking skills.
• My friends would describe me as being very interested in food.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Score = mean. Higher = greater food involvement. Widely used as a segmentation variable in food marketing research — high food involvement consumers are more responsive to quality cues, provenance claims, and food experiences. Related to the Food Neophobia Scale (Pliner & Hobden, 1992) which measures reluctance to try new foods.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Bell, R., & Marshall, D.W. (2003). The construct of food involvement in behavioral research: Scale development and validation. Appetite, 40(3), 235–244.

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