In order to analyze the survey correctly, I wanted to clarify to you why such questions have been asked. In Saudi Arabia, due to the climate we do not have much access to all certain kinds of fruit and vegetables all year round. Unfortunately, world wide, most of our vegetables and fruits are genetically modified making them bigger and last longer. That is why access to organic foods in Saudi is expensive. Due to it being imported as it is not available locally for many reasons. Recently, there has been a trend of eating organic foods, being vegetarian and so on. Quinoa, flaxseed, kale, almond milk, coconut milk, avocados have been mentioned increasingly amongst people. Mostly, women. I don’t even think my husband knows what Quinoa is.
Our research is trying to examine and interpret the reasons why people started eating healthier, would they take the extra mile to eat healthier and if social proof and “trends” have to do anything with it. Please refer to the rubric to understand the assignment furthermore. I felt like I needed to explain this bit to understand the nature of the survey questions as it is the main part of the research paper, to understand the behavior of people in Saudi in terms of eating healthy and its’ relation to social proof. Of course it is not easy for one to admit to conformity, but we formulated the question in ways not to offend the participants and try as much as possible to get to what we desire for the outcome. Lastly, culture has a big role in affecting eating habits such as quantities of food. For the slightest example, traditionally at homes when we have lunch, you can usually find around three dishes in the dining table in which members around the table serve themselves by scooping from the big main dishes onto their plates, like an everyday buffet. It is seen as a gesture of kindness and generosity. It would be accurate to relate culture to food in this case. However, our research paper discusses the effect of social proof on the decisions of healthy foods of “citizens” of Saudi, not just Saudi’s, there is a percentage of non-Saudis that have answered the survey as well
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