Six-hundred participants were recruited via databases of interested persons, social media sites, the Prolific research participation platform and Bournemouth University’s Psychology student research participation platform. Exclusion criteria were less than 18 years of age and living less than one year in the UK. The study was granted ethical approval by the Research Ethics Committee of Bournemouth University (ID: 32878) prior to commencement and was run in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Usual consumption of sweet-tasting foods, sugar and sweeteners were estimated by asking for frequency of consumption of the top National Diet and Nutrition Survey food groups that contributed to total sugar intakes relevant to the sugar reduction programme in the UK, 2012 to 2014 (Tedstone et al., 2015). To include the consumption of artificially-sweetened foods and drinks, ‘Chocolate and Sweet Confectionery’, ‘Ice Cream, Lollies and Sorbets’, ‘Yogurt’ and ‘Soft Drinks’ were further split into ‘not sugar-free or diet’ and ‘sugar-free or diet’. In addition, habitual sweet food-related behaviours were estimated by requesting frequency of adding sugar, honey and sweetener in coffee, tea and homecooked dishes. Response choices available for all intake questions ranged from ‘Rarely or never’ to ‘5+ a Day’.
Defined as “an overall evaluation of an object that is based on cognitive, affective, and behavioural information” (Maio et al., 2019, p. 28), attitudes towards sweet-tasting foods, sugar and sweeteners, and their intakes, were assessed through a 5-point Likert Scale, where participants were asked to specify their level of agreement or disagreement with 81 statements referring to various aspects of these foods. These statements were composed following thematic analysis of a qualitative study on the attitudes of residents of the UK towards sweet-tasting foods, sugar and sweeteners, towards their intakes of these foods groups, and towards related policies (Tang et al., 2021). The themes were ‘Angle’, ‘Personal Relevance’, ‘Personal Responsibility’, ‘It’s Not Up to Me’, ‘Understanding’ and ‘Value’. Twenty-three statements were relevant to sweet-tasting foods, 29 to sugar, 26 to sweeteners and four statements were relevant to both sugar and sweeteners. Statements were written in the active voice and related directly to the respondent, for example, ‘I feel guilty whenever I consume sweet foods’. Statements were both positively- and negatively-worded and presented randomly across all themes. Participants could select from ‘Strongly Disagree’ to ‘Strongly Agree’. The questionnaire was piloted among 13 volunteers and changes were made to improve comprehension and flow. The final list of questions is provided in the Supplementary Materials.
Demographic characteristics measured were gender, age, ethnicity, highest education qualification level attained, and socio-economic classification (SEC) based on employment (Office for National Statistics, 2019, 2020; UK Government, 2020). Lifestyle characteristics measured were Body Mass Index (BMI) based on self-reported height and body weight, self-reported presence of any health condition that may influence eating and food choice, adherence to any diet, and food intolerances or allergies to foods.
The questionnaire was provided in the order: (1) estimated intake frequencies, (2) attitudes, and (3) demographic and lifestyle questions. It was administered online, including the process of consent. Logical statements were implemented to improve scale validity and identify careless responses (Abbey & Meloy, 2017; Kung et al., 2018). The two statements were 1) All sugar is dug out from sugar mines at least 50 metres deep; 2) All sugar comes from the sea. They were presented with the other attitude statements in a randomised order. Any respondent that agreed or strongly agreed with either statement was removed from analysis.