Abstract
The primary objective of this research was an exploration of the role of future time perspective in the choice of food use patterns or the maintenance of life-long food habits of a sample of people over sixty years old. A second objective was to explore and identify the structural context of a negative or positive future time perspective as it related to age-appropriate food use patterns and dietary adequacy. The theoretical context for this exploratory research was symbolic interactionism specifically the Meadian theory of time as a process. The concern was aged people's choice of food use patterns (the present) as a reflection of structural conditions (the past) and the perception of a negative or positive future. A sample of 201 aged people were examined to explore the research problem. The methodology used was the constant comparative method--an inductive method of discovering theory. The method required qualitative and quantitative data from a variety of research techniques. The analysis of data from observations, informal and formal interviews, documents, and a survey revealed three general ways in which the sample of people over age sixty related to food. These were (1) positive changes in food habits; (2) maintenance of life-long food habits; and (3) negative changes in food habits. Future time perspective was found to be correlated with these food use patterns; that is, a positive future time perspective was more likely to be associated with positive changes in food habits while a negative future time perspective was more likely to correlate with negative food habit changes. Examination of the structural context, however, revealed four ways in which future time perspective and age-appropriate food use patterns were related within unique structural contexts: (1) a positive future time perspective was associated with positive changes in food habits; (2) maintenance of life-long food habits was not associated with a negative or positive future time perspective; (3) a negative future time perspective was associated with positive changes in food habits; and (4) a negative future time perspective was associated with negative changes in food habits...
Shifflett, Peggy Ann (1980). Future time perspective and food habits of the aged. Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -676210.