| The consumption of functional foods, vitamin, mineral supplements (VMS), and non-vitamin, non-mineral supplements (NVNMS), are important health-related trends in the United States (U.S.). Functional foods have been cited as the leading trend in the U.S. food industry (Meyer 1998) with some market potential estimates approaching 30 billion dollars (4). Results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (Sloan 1999), indicated that about 40% of the U.S. population take VMS (Mullan 2000). A 1998 Gallup Survey found that more than 60 million Americans have tried NVNMS.; Currently, there is little published information regarding NVNMS use and functional food consumption at the national level. Radimer et al (2000) noted that data on the NVNMS prevalence is limited and used both sales data and information “volunteered” by respondents in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) to provide information about the prevalence of NVNMS use in the U.S. Although there are numerous privately funded surveys (Coleman et al 1995) that include NVNMS use, published data is limited. Only Childs (1997) has described consumers of “functional food” products.; The general purpose of this dissertation was to obtain information about consumer interest in some functional foods and to find indicators (i.e., demographic information and simple, indirect questions) for increased interest in functional foods. |
