Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep 20:12:e18091.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.18091. eCollection 2024.

The relationship between price and nutritional balance for young adults in the menus of Japanese restaurants

Yu Ogasawara  1 , Miyuki Asanuma  2 , Masashi Kasuya  3 , Yuki Soma  4
Affiliations

The relationship between price and nutritional balance for young adults in the menus of Japanese restaurants

Yu Ogasawara et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Background: Eating habits are a contributing factor to obesity. Higher-priced menu items have better nutritional quality/balance, as the relationship between the price of food per serving and nutritional quality/balance has been reported. However, previous studies on the nutritional content of restaurant menu items did not focus on the relationship between the nutritional balance of menu items and prices. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate this relationship.

Methods: The nutritional balance score (NBS) was defined and calculated according to each nutritional criterion of men and women aged 18-29 years, covering more than 2,000 menu items in 26 Japanese restaurant chains. Furthermore, NBS distribution by gender and restaurant brand, and the relationship between the menu item's NBS and price were assessed.

Results: The results showed that the average NBS of the analyzed menu items differed between the criteria for men and women, with the menu items assessed based on men's criterion being more nutritionally balanced on average. The compositions of the top 10 menu items differed between men and women, and most were set menus or rice bowl menus, which were offered by fast-food restaurants. The relationship between price and NBS in most fast-food and casual restaurants was expressed as a concave function. The maximum NBS based on the criteria for men and women were 64.9 and 64.1, with prices of 639.9 and 530.3 yen, respectively.

Discussion: NBS score increased with price to a certain level before decreasing, suggesting that the price at which NBS was the highest differed between men and women. The results of this study could contribute to the development of a methodology for healthy eating out practices, with a focus on price.

Keywords: Chain restaurants; Cost performance; Menu price; Nutritional balance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Nutritional balance scores for the criteria for men and women.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Nutritional balance scores of menus by brand number for the criteria for men and women.
Brand 1–13: fast food restaurants, Brand 14–20: casual restaurants, Brand 21–25: café-type restaurants, Brand 26: pub-type restaurants.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Adjusted NBSs and prices calculated from the criteria for men and women.
The dashed lines represent the upper and lower bounds of the 95% confidence intervals. The maximum value for each graph is represented by a triangular point.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Example scatter plots of brands for the criteria for men.
The maximum and minimum value points for each graph are represented by triangular points.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Beydoun MA, Powell LM, Chen X, Wang Y. Food prices are associated with dietary quality, fast food consumption, and body mass index among U.S. children and adolescents. Journal of Nutrition. 2011;141(2):304–311. doi: 10.3945/jn.110.132613. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cao YJ, Wang HJ, Zhang B, Qi SF, Mi YJ, Pan XB, Wang C, Tian QB. Associations of fat and carbohydrate intake with becoming overweight and obese: an 11-year longitudinal cohort study. The British Journal of Nutrition. 2020;124(7):715–728. doi: 10.1017/S0007114520001579. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Carlson A, Frazão E. Food costs, diet quality and energy balance in the United States. Physiology & Behavior. 2014;134(5):20–31. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2014.03.001. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Chambers S, Lobb A, Butler LT, Traill WB. The influence of age and gender on food choice: a focus group exploration. International Journal of Consumer Studies. 2008;32(4):356–365. doi: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00642.x. - DOI
    1. Drewnowski A. Nutrient density: addressing the challenge of obesity. British Journal of Nutrition. 2018;120(s1):S8–S14. doi: 10.1017/S0007114517002240. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources