Title: What factors influence consumer overconsumption of food? An investigation from Dhaka during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors: Tanveer Kabir; Nurun Naher Popy; M. Sayeed Alam

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh ' Department of Business Administration, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh ' Department of Business Administration, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract: With the emergence of the ongoing pandemic more and more people in Dhaka have been made accustomed to remain within the confines of their homes. Households in Dhaka have contemporised the idea of working, studying and even shopping through online mediums. Numerous studies show a correlation between spending significantly long time indoors and consumer overconsumption, eventually leading up to an increase in cases of obesity. This study aims to find out the different factors that might influence consumer overconsumption behaviour during the pandemic from the perspective of Dhaka. Questionnaires were sent out to 250 individuals who are habituated with social media and online shopping. Owing to the countrywide lockdown and restrictions on socialising, the method of collecting survey responses was online. Three hypotheses were proposed in this research and which were tested by means of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The outputs derived from the SEM produced insight to some of the factors that influenced consumer overconsumption of food during the pandemic. The study reveals that psychological factors and social media directly influenced consumer overconsumption behaviour among individuals who were staying at home during the countrywide lockdown periods. The study results also suggest that there is no significant evidence to propose that the food delivery services, directly contribute to influencing the individuals staying at home to consume more food.

Keywords: social media; overconsumption; obesity; online delivery; psychology; Dhaka.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBHR.2022.127120

International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research, 2022 Vol.8 No.3/4, pp.234 - 253

Received: 23 Mar 2022
Accepted: 08 Aug 2022
Published online: 22 Nov 2022 *

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