Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the consumption of organic food products as consumers have found them to be an alternative to conventional food consumption (Ditlevsen et al., 2019) . The primary motivation for consumers purchasing organic foods is based on the healthiness of products that have been certified organic (Ditlevsen et al., 2019) . The developments in modern food production both in the United States and many other countries are primarily driven by the ideals of sustainability and environmental concerns (Mie et al., 2017) . According to research, the most common attributes associated with organic products from studies undertaken in different countries to consumers include animal welfare, food safety, and environmental protection.
The research also identified that consumers who were more concerned about their health were willing to pay higher for organic foods than conventional products. Obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, and chronic heart diseases are among the critical health care concerns facing Americans today (Ditlevsen et al., 2019) . Nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, obesity, and elevated blood cholesterol are health risks that are affecting adolescents and young adults in the United States (Brantsæter et al., 2017) . On the other hand, female athletes are experiencing low bone mineral density that increases their risk of lifetime fractures (Brantsæter et al., 2017) . This prompts the need for health educators to teach students on the nutritional and health benefits of organic food, and how they can reduce the risks associated with chronic diseases.
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Research Analysis
| Topic of Interest: | The Health Implications of organic Foods and Nutritional Education | |||
| Research Article: Include full citation in APA format, as well as link or search details (such as DOI) | McReynolds, K., Gillan, W., & Naquin, M. (2017). An Examination of College Students’ Knowledge, Perceptions, and Behaviors Regarding Organic Foods. American Journal of Health Education , 49 (1), 48-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2017.1399837 | |||
Professional Practice Use: One or more professional practice uses of the theories/concepts presented in the article | The nutritional benefits of organic foods. The importance of nutrition education for students. Why consumers are willing to pay more for organic foods. Sustainable agriculture and environmental practices. How the health benefits of organic foods are used by consumers to determine their consumption choices. Identify the different health implications held by organic consumers that are used to uphold their liking for organic food products. | |||
Research Analysis Matrix
| Strengths of the Research | Limitations of the Research | Relevancy to Topic of Interest | Notes |
| The production and consumption of organic foods are environmentally friendly, reduce exposure to pesticides, and are better for animal welfare (McReynolds et al., 2017). | The implications of the study cannot be used as a generalized study for the entire population. | Different agricultural production and management systems have negative impacts on the sustainability of food systems, and this may affect human and animal health, as well as environmental sustainability (Gineikiene et al., 2017). Developing sustainable food systems is a priority for many governments, and this may be achieved by reducing the trade-offs between productivity and sustainability (Mie et al., 2017). | ||
| Implications of organic food on health include lowering the risks associated with childhood allergies, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and obesity (Gineikiene et al., 2017). | Other research methods, such as the use of open-ended questions, could have been used to provide more insight into the problem. | Students need to be taught how organic foods help lower the risks associated with chronic diseases and the metrics that can be used to make healthy decisions (Gineikiene et al., 2017). | ||
| Consumers are more aware of their health choices. Their understating is based on health as a nutritional value, health as purity, and health as pleasure (Rizzo et al., 2020). | Organic food production accounts for more than $45 billion in the United States (Gineikiene et al., 2017). The nutritional and health value of organic products are regarded as the primary reason for purchase by consumers (Gineikiene et al., 2017). This means that consuming organic foods is based on their healthiness, good taste, and they are environmentally friendly. | |||
| College students have little knowledge of the behaviour associated with the purchasing of organic foods (McReynolds et al., 2017). This implies that educators should provide students with resources to help them identify their nutritional choices and the health benefits associated with organic foods (Rizzo et al., 2020). | Consumer behaviour in the United States and across the world is changing as people move towards consuming organic foods (McReynolds et al., 2017). With the increased availability of different types of organic food, customers are faced with more difficult choices on how to improve their health (Rizzo et al., 2020). Therefore, students need to learn about the implications of organic food and how to make healthy choices (Mie et al., 2017). | |||
| The production and consumption of organic foods are environmentally friendly, reduce exposure to pesticides, and are better for animal welfare (Rizzo et al., 2020). | ||||
Summary of the Analysis
After I had identified the topic of interest, I embarked on searching for my article of choice in two databases – ProQuest and EBSCOhost. ProQuest and EBSCOhost have advanced search functions such as the ability to limit the search results to only peer-reviewed articles. For this critique, I selected peer-reviewed journals that were published in the last five years as they pertain to recent information based on the topic of study. The other method that was used in identifying if the article is scholarly was to check on the availability if the abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, and the references sections in the article. All these sections were available in the journal apart from the literature review section, which was substituted with the title "background of the study." From EBSCO's database, the details for the publication indicated that the journal is peer-reviewed and the link to the publication redirected to the Taylor and Francis online database that required login credentials before the article could be accessed for review.
One of the approaches that I found useful in finding peer-reviewed research was by using limiters or filters to limit the search results based on a specific criterion. However, the use of limiters is not provided by all databases. To enhance my search results, I filtered the search results to only include the date of the publication – 2015 – 2020 and the material type to peer-reviewed or Scholar articles only based on the topic of interest. The second strategy was by employing the use of keywords in searching for peer-reviewed articles. The keywords were effective in helping narrow down the search results as they define the topic, the field, and the research issue that were covered by the article. Another important aspect of using keywords is that, often than not, they are tied to the main idea of the post, and based on the intelligence of search engines, the search results included the words that were stressed on the search terms. In databases such as ProQuest, the keywords are usually highlighted in yellow. This reduces the time required to search for a peer-reviewed journal.
SAGE Journals is a resource that I would like to use subsequent research to find Scholarly articles. Sage Journals offers different publications by disciplines such as material sciences and engineering, social sciences, and humanities, as well as health sciences. The primary reason that I chose SAGE Journals is that I want to explore the different peer-reviewed articles found in the database, critique, and evaluate them with other scholarly articles from the same topic that are found in other databases. By exploring the peer-reviewed journals found in different databases, I will be able to enhance my knowledge in my current area of study, critique the different methods and results of these studies that will help in identifying gaps in a specific area of study that I can choose to focus on as my dissertation.
References
Brantsæter, A., Ydersbond, T., Hoppin, J., Haugen, M., & Meltzer, H. (2017). Organic Food in the Diet: Exposure and Health Implications. Annual Review of Public Health , 38 (1), 295-313. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031816-044437
Ditlevsen, K., Sandøe, P., & Lassen, J. (2019). Healthy food is nutritious, but organic food is healthy because it is pure: The negotiation of healthy food choices by Danish consumers of organic food. Food Quality and Preference , 71 , 46-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2018.06.001
Gineikiene, J., Kiudyte, J., & Degutis, M. (2017). Functional, organic, or conventional? Food choices of health conscious and skeptical consumers. Baltic Journal of Management , 12 (2), 139-152. https://doi.org/10.1108/bjm-01-2016-0016
McReynolds, K., Gillan, W., & Naquin, M. (2017). An Examination of College Students’ Knowledge, Perceptions, and Behaviors Regarding Organic Foods. American Journal of Health Education , 49 (1), 48-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2017.1399837
Mie, A., Andersen, H., Gunnarsson, S., Kahl, J., Kesse-Guyot, E., & Rembiałkowska, E. et al. (2017). Human health implications of organic food and organic agriculture: a comprehensive review. Environmental Health , 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-017-0315-4
Rizzo, G., Borrello, M., Dara Guccione, G., Schifani, G., & Cembalo, L. (2020). Organic Food Consumption: The Relevance of the Health Attribute. Sustainability , 12 (2), 595. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020595
