Research problem and objectives

Horticulture Australia Limited is one of the top largest among fifteen Rural Research and Development Corporation in Australia and they work in association with other forty three members. Consumption of vegetables is necessary as it helps in losing weight, reduces carcinogenic risk, helps in retaining the younger look, makes the bone stronger and also tends to have a long and healthy life. A survey of CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) among 145000 adults showed that only 24% women and 15% men were eating the required two fruits and five vegetables per day. In 2011, almost 63.9% of Australians between 30- 65 years of age seemed to eat healthy foods. 29.7% found out that their diet can neither be considered as healthy nor unhealthy (Babin and Zikmund 2015).

Fig: Fruit intake by age and gender

Fig: Inadequate fruit intake over time

Fig: Vegetable intake by age and gender

Fig: Inadequate vegetable intake over time

In 2011- 12, 48.5% Australians of 18 years and above were reported to consume two or more fruits a day and 8.2% met the guideline for the daily intake of vegetables. In the last ten years, the number of Australians of age 18 years and above who have not met the standard daily intake of vegetables has increased rapidly (Cox and Poelman 2015).

It is a serious problem because there were 45,392 deaths due to cardio- vascular problems in Australia in 2015. In 2010, 25.8% of premature deaths were caused due to cardio- vascular problems. Moreover, a large population of Australia is prone to high BP, high BMI, high cholesterol, which has resulted due to their diet deficient in fruit, vegetables, omega 3 fatty acids and sodium (Fodness, D., 2015).

Based on the background information, the problem can be the why the consumption rate of vegetables is low among Australians, especially children?

Children in the age group of 4- 7 years should consume at least 2 to 4 vegetables and children of age 8- 11 years should consume at least 3- 5 vegetables daily.

Children of age 2- 12 years were surveyed through telephonic interview. The responses received are as follows,

• 86% boys and 84% girls (2- 4 years) and 73% boys and 77% girls (5- 12 years) consume less than 2 vegetables.
• <10% children (5- 12 years) consume 3 or more vegetables.
• 15% (2- 4 years) and 12% (5- 12 years) children consume the adequate vegetables (Grossberg and Grossberg 2016).

 

Fig: Fruit and vegetable intake by location

Fig: Fruit and vegetable intake by socio- demographic status

This research is important because people in Australia need to be more aware about their health and diet. Their daily diet should include the adequate quantity of fruits and vegetables. The rate of cardio- vascular and heart diseases are more in Australia as it is shown above. Therefore daily intake of fruits and vegetables is a must both for the children as well as the adults. Since the above charts showed that the people of Australia suffer from high BP and cholesterol therefore a broccoli is a must in their regular diet. Broccoli has the ability to prevent cancer, improve digestion, reduce the cholesterol level and enhance vitamin and mineral uptake by the body (Hair Jr and Lukas 2014).

According to Mihrshahi, Dobson and Mishra 2015, more the intake of green vegetables, less will be the risk of diabetes. It has also been included in the possible role of fruits and vegetables that helps in preventing depression. The Global Burden of Disease Study has discussed that less intake of fruits and vegetables is the most important factor in global disease burden. To focus on the dietary patterns in studies, while measurements regarding health are done, the intake of fruits and vegetables are always taken into account.

Literature Review

As per the review of Nguyen et al. 2016, there is an increase in the consumption of fruits and vegetables. This study examined the relation of all- cause mortality with the consumption of fruits and vegetables and that of the consumption of raw and cooked vegetables among the Australian population. The intake of fruits and vegetables were assessed by some approved short questions.

As Rekhy and McConchie 2014 have stated that the regular intake of fruits and vegetables among individuals has been less than the recommended level of World Health Organization. Although a number of policies have been designed to increase the quantity of fruits and vegetables in the regular diet which resulted in spending a lot of money, was of no significant use. Numerous factors were identified to promote the increase in consuming fruits and vegetables which included the consumer behavior too.

Solomon 2014 have stated in this journal about the universal principle of consumer behavior and the cultural, social, and economic factors that influence them. The article also focuses on the buying behavior of the consumers within the limited framework of the recent research and knowledge on the decision making of the consumer.

The following diagram is showing the dependent and independent variables and their relationships: 

There can be two types of hypotheses based on the above diagram-

H1- the rate of consumption of green vegetables among Australian children is not low

H2- the rate of consumption of green vegetables is low among Australian children

In this research problem, the hypotheses H1 is not applicable because the rate of consumption of green vegetables is actually low among the Australian children.

 In this problem, qualitative research is not possible because a survey will be conducted by means of questionnaire. Qualitative research will lead to a collection of only handful of data because it is not feasible to go for a door- to- door survey.

The survey of this research problem will be quantitative because there will be questionnaire through which responses will be counted. Online questionnaires were sent to the mother to calculate the rate of their children’s diet.

Online survey will be done by using questionnaires which will calculate the rate of consumption of green vegetables among the children in Australia. The questionnaire attached with this proposal takes into account the two types of scales- nominal and ordinal.

Systematic sampling method should be used in order to conduct this survey. The sample size will include the four areas around Australia- Queensland, Melbourne, Perth and New South Wales. The survey will be conducted by categorizing the population in gender and age group. This is the best possible method because in a larger population random population will not give valid results (Wedel and Kannan 2016).

The questionnaire will be circulated online because to reach out to a larger population the researcher must be systematic to gather proper information and data. Doing the research online is the best possible way to receive facts from the respondents.

The data will be collected through regression analysis. This is because the process uses statistics to establish relationships among variables.

There are few ethical considerations which will be kept in mind while doing the research. The online survey should not be forced on the respondents. The information provided by them should not be disclosed without their consent. No name will be provided along with the questionnaire. The information gathered should be strictly used for academic purpose and not for commercial use. No changes will be done on the information provided by the respondents (Renaud 2014).

This research proposal will look into the regular intake of green vegetables by a large population of Australia. This research has an objective to find out what are the factors affecting the children from eating green vegetables especially broccoli. The parents of the children were asked some questions regarding the diet of their kids. The expected output can be the reason of high price of vegetables that are limiting the intake of vegetables by the Australian population. In the case of children, the reason can be their excess affinity towards junk food.

This research will be able to resolve the problems faced by HAL because by receiving the answers from the respondents it will be clear for the researcher to understand where it is lacking in the intake of fresh vegetables. This will also help them to upgrade the quality and productivity.

Reference

Babin, B.J. and Zikmund, W.G., 2015. Exploring marketing research. Cengage Learning.

Cox, D.N. and Poelman, A.A., 2015. Towards greater vegetable consumption: Change the product or change the person? Case studies of two vegetable commodities. Food Research International, 69, pp.348-356.

Fodness, D., 2015. Marketing New Services. In Proceedings of the 1989 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 502-506). Springer, Cham.

Grossberg, K.A. and Grossberg, K.A., 2016. The new marketing solutions that will drive strategy implementation. Strategy & Leadership, 44(3), pp.20-26.

Hair Jr, J.F. and Lukas, B., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 2). McGraw-Hill Education Australia.

heartfoundation.org.au. (2017). Fruit and vegetable consumption statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/about-us/what-we-do/heart-disease-in-australia/fruit-and-vegetable-consumption-statistics [Accessed 1 Aug. 2017].

Mihrshahi, S., Dobson, A.J. and Mishra, G.D., 2015. Fruit and vegetable consumption and prevalence and incidence of depressive symptoms in mid-age women: results from the Australian longitudinal study on women’s health. European journal of clinical nutrition, 69(5), p.585.

Nguyen, B., Bauman, A., Gale, J., Banks, E., Kritharides, L. and Ding, D., 2016. Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause mortality: evidence from a large Australian cohort study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 13(1), p.9.

Rekhy, R. and McConchie, R., 2014. Promoting consumption of fruit and vegetables for better health. Have campaigns delivered on the goals?. Appetite, 79, pp.113-123.

Renaud, E.N.C., 2014. Breeding and regulatory opportunities and constraints for developing broccoli cultivars adapted to organic agriculture. Wageningen University.

Solomon, M.R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Wedel, M. and Kannan, P.K., 2016. Marketing analytics for data-rich environments. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.97-121.