Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The Uk

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Introduction:

In this paper we discuss the historical trends in food expenditure and the nutrition levels of the food in the UK, our chosen time series data ranges from 1990 to the year 2000, data was retrieved from www.statistics.gov.uk , the data describes various foods and their expenditure level, also the nutrition level consumption over the years.

Data:

Data was retrieved from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=3802&

Pos=2&ColRank=1&Rank=272 , expenditure data portrays the level of expenditure in cents per person in one week, the foods chosen include liquid milk, eggs, meat and meat products, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, cereals and beverages. the data ranges from 1990 to 2000 and the data is as follows:

Liquid whole milk

Eggs

Meat and Meat Products

Fresh potatoes

1/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Total vegetables

Fresh fruit

cereals and cereal products

Beverages

2/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

1990

61.9

19.5

215.7

27.7

169.8

65.1

135.3

43.2

3/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

1991

58.5

20.1

215.2

28.1

181.0

70.2

146.6

45.9

1992

53.4

18.8

4/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

226.2

25.1

183.8

69.3

156.4

43.1

1993

48.7

17.7

242.7

23.3

5/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

185.3

66.8

161.2

41.8

1994

45.2

17.3

244.5

28.7

192.5

71.9

162.1

6/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

43.4

1995

42.3

17.4

254.5

38.4

215.2

75.9

175.7

44.7

1996

7/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

39.0

18.4

276.2

31.3

220.1

79.6

193.9

46.3

1997

36.0

17.7

8/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

284.2

25.6

214.4

87.0

197.2

44.2

1998

33.9

17.0

283.6

34.1

227.8

9/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

91.3

195.7

48.9

1999

30.6

17.0

276.8

33.3

233.9

93.4

199.5

10/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

42.3

2000

31.3

17.6

293.2

32.0

228.9

95.0

206.1

42.7

11/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

From the data it is clear that there has been a decline in expenditure of liquid milk over the years, another observation is that there has been an increase in expenditure of meat in that UK also an increase in expenditure of fresh fruits, cereals have also increased in their expenditure level, this can be attributed to the increase or decline in the demand for each food stated above.

From the data it is also clear that there has been a change in the pattern of consumption of foods over the year, there has been a change in the expenditure level of different foods above and this portrays a change in the consumption pattern of consumers, for this reason therefore we can plot the data in a chart to check for the trends in the foods mentioned above.

From the chart it is clear that meat and meat products have the highest levels of expenditure and over the years there has been an increase in the expenditure level, beverages have the lowest expenditure levels are recorded with regard to beverages and their consumption have remained constant over the years.

Analysis of mean levels:

We sum up the total expenditures of our chosen foods, and then get their means to check which food type contains more expenditure per week:

12/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Liquid whole milk

Eggs

Meat and Meat Products

Fresh potatoes

Total vegetables

Fresh fruit

cereals and cereal products

Beverages

total

480.8

198.6

2812.6

13/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

327.6

2252.6

865.5

1929.7

486.4

mean

43.71

18.05

255.6936

29.77909

204.78091

14/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

78.67727

175.4236

44.217273

The mean levels of each food can be represented in a chart as follows:

The above chart shows the mean levels of expenditure for each food, higher means are evident in the meat and meat products while a lower mean is evident in the eggs expenditure levels over the years, for this reason therefore it is clear that between the year 1990 to 2000 higher expenditures were in the meat and meat products.

If we assume that only our chosen foods are available in the market and that the consumer consumes all the products, then the percentage mean expenditure levels will be as follows for the 11 years given that only the stated foods are in the consumer’s basket.

We now analyse the nutrition levels consumed in the year 1990 to 2000, this data was also

retrieved from the     http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=3802&Pos=

2&ColRank=1&Rank=272 , despite having a larger sample size of nutrition type we will only consider a few nutrients, the table below shows our sample data used to analyse nutrition consumption in the UK. The data represents the nutrients consumed by a person per day:

15/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Energy (kcal)

Protein

Fat

Carbohydrate

Fibre

Sodium

1990

1870

63.1

86

224

16/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

12.1

2.50

1991

1840

62.3

85

223

12.2

2.49

1992

1860

17/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

62.8

86

222

12.0

2.51

1993

1830

62.3

84

220

11.9

2.50

18/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

1994

1790

62.5

80

217

11.7

2.51

1995

1780

63.0

78

19/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

218

11.6

2.51

1996

1850

65.0

82

228

12.4

2.62

1997

20/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

1790

64.7

78

221

12.4

2.58

1998

1740

64.3

75

214

21/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

12.1

2.52

1999

1690

63.2

72

211

11.9

2.49

2000

1750

22/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

66.3

74

218.0

12.6

3.0

From the above table it is clear that there has been an increase in the intake of protein, fibre and sodium and a decline in all the other products, the trends of consumption per person can be represented in a chart as follows:

Fat consumption has declined over the years, this can be attributed to the increased awareness of fat related diseases over the years, protein levels have slightly increased over the years and the consumption of fibre and sodium have remained low and unchanged over the years. From the data it is also clear that carbohydrate levels are the highest in our chart, this is because carbohydrates are mostly needed per day because they provide energy needed by the body.

An analysis of mean levels over the years for the selected nutrients gives us the following table

23/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

total

mean

Standard deviation

Energy (kcal)

19790

1799.091

56.82509

Protein

699.4864

63.58967

24/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

1.302301

Fat

879.9608

79.99644

5.006282

Carbohydrate

2415.803

219.6185

4.795622

Fibre

132.9

25/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

12.08182

0.306001

Sodium

28.207

2.564273

0.143592

From the above we can construct a mean chart and the following will be the results:

The chart saw that in average higher levels of carbohydrates are consumed, the second high level of consumption is fats and then proteins, lower levels of fibre and sodium are consumed per day and for this reason we can state that in a day more carbohydrates are consumed than nay other nutrient in the body, this can be due to the high levels of carbohydrates in the foods we consume.

Also due to the fact that we consume more of carbohydrates because we need carbohydrates because they provide us with energy. From our data table which analysis the standard deviations it is clear that there are greater deviations in the consumption of carbohydrates and fats, this can be attributed to the increased consumption of energy giving foods over the years.

26/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Proteins and meat and meat products:

We now analyse the relationship that exists between protein and the expenditure on meat and meat products: from the findings there is a strong correlation between the expenditure of meat and proteins consumption per day, the correlation coefficient is 0.796, the correlation is positive and for this reason we conclude that as the level of consumption of protein nutrient per day increase then total expenditure per person increases, if we are to assume a regression model where we assume the protein consumption level as the independent level and our expenditure level on meat as our dependent variable then we expect that as the level of protein consumption increase then the expenditure level on meat will increase, we will state our model as follows:

Y = a + bx where Y is the expenditure level and x is the protein nutrient consumption, after estimation the following were the results:

A = -864.52

B = 17.6163

Having our data as stated above we can now state our estimated model as follows:

Y = -864.52 + 17.6163 X

The above model means that if we hold all other factors constant and the level of X which stands for protein level per individual then the level of meat expenditure would be -864.52, in the same case if we hold all other factors constant and increase the level of X by one unit then the level of meat consumption will increase by 17.6163 units, for this reason therefore we can conclude by saying that the level of protein consumption will determine the level of expenditure on meat, meat is one of the highest provider of protein and an increase in the level of protein

27/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

consumed per person will lead to an increase in the level of expenditure on meat.

From the above analysis we assumed that the protein level of an individual is the only determinant of meat expenditure, however there are other factors that determine the level of expenditure of meat which include the price of meat but in our case our objective was to check the relevance of the protein level per individual and the expenditure on meat.

The correlation of determination for our model is 0.63612, the correlation of determination provides the strength of a relationship that exist between two variables, however the correlation of determination of our model means that 63.61% of the variations in meat expenditure are explained by our independent variable which is protein consumption per person.

We also perform the statistical significance of our estimated model and in this case the following are the results:

99%

28/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

t calculated t critical

a

-3.0605

2.89646

b

3.9665

2.89646

From the above analysis at 98% test level our estimated parameters are statistically significance:

29/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

The autonomous value a

Null hypothesis

H0: a = 0

Alternative hypothesis

Ha: a ≠ 0

We reject the null hypothesis that a = 0 and therefore our autonomous value is statistically significant

For our slope in the model b:

Null hypothesis

H0: b = 0

Alternative hypothesis

Ha: b ≠ 0

30/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

We reject the null hypothesis that b=0 and therefore we conclude that our b is statistically significant.

Despite our findings there is still need to re specify the model using more independent variables which have major influence on the expenditure of meat, these variables include price of meat and demand for meat and the supply of meat, however our estimated model can be used to estimate and forecast on the expenditure of meat given individual needs and consumption of protein nutrients.

Sugar and carbohydrates:

There is a correlation between the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar, the correlation level is 0.76106, the level of expenditure on sugar will increase and also the level of carbohydrates consumption will increase, this is depicted by the positive correlation that exist between the two variables, there is a strong relation between the two variables, if we assume that the level of carbohydrate consumption will affect the level of expenditure on sugar then we can come up with a hypothesis which will lead us to specify another model as follows:

Y = a + b X where Y is expenditure on sugar and x is the level of carbohydrates consumption in a day for one person. This model is based on the assumption that the level of carbohydrate consumption will affect the total expenditure of sugar which is a carbohydrate providing nutrient. When we estimate the model using data series from 1990 to 2000 then our resulting estimated model is as follows:

Y = – 48.44 + 0.2647 X

31/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

From the above model it states that if we hold all other factors constant and let the value of carbohydrate consumption be equal to zero then the level of sugar expenditure will be – 48.44, further if we hold all other factors constant and increase the level of carbohydrates by one unit then the level of sugar expenditure will increase by 0.2647 units. Therefore we can find out from our estimated model that if we increase consumption of carbohydrates then the level of sugar expenditure will increase.

The coefficient of correlation of determination is equal to 0.58547 and this means that 58% of the variation in sugar expenditure is explained by the level of carbohydrates consumed by a person per day, for this reason therefore it is clear that there is a positive and moderately strong relationship between carbohydrates consumption and sugar expenditure.

When we perform T statistical test at 99% level on the statistical significance then the following are the results:

99%

t  calculated

32/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

t  critical

a

-2.9703

2.89646

b

3.5653

2.89646

We reject the null hypothesis in both cases. This means that both of our estimated parameters are statistically significant.

The autonomous value a

33/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Null hypothesis

H0: a = 0

Alternative hypothesis

Ha: a ≠ 0

We reject the null hypothesis that a = 0 and therefore our autonomous value is statistically significant

For our slope in the model b:

Null hypothesis

H0: b = 0

Alternative hypothesis

Ha: b ≠ 0

34/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

We reject the null hypothesis that b=0 and therefore we conclude that our b is statistically significant.

Research report:

The findings in this data is significant to each and everyone in the society, it is important to be aware of what we consume and a country and the correlation between nutrients consumed and the frequency of illnesses that are related to nutrition, therefore according to this findings it is easy to relate the increased occurrences of obesity and their relation to the nutrients consumed in the entire economy.

For this reason this study is important to each and everyone in the society such that the average person in the economy consumption and expenditure levels are portrayed, in our findings we found out that an average person between the years 1990 to 2000 spent 43.71 pounds per week on liquid milk, 18.05 pounds on eggs per week, 255 pounds on meat per week, vegetable expenditure per week amounted to 204 pounds and 78.67 pounds per week on fresh fruits. Using this data therefore it is evident that more is spent on meat than any other commodity and less is spent on eggs.

There is also available data for other food stuffs but we chose the above commodities which of interest to this research report, many factors exist to explain the high expenditure levels on meat and this might be attributed to high meat prices or increased frequencies of purchase of meat commodities per week by household individuals. For this reason therefore we only chose a small sample of the provided population.

An analysis of the trends over the years of these commodities it was found that there has been a decline in expenditure of liquid milk over the years from 1990 to 2000, there has also been an increase in expenditure of meat in UK over the years and an increase in expenditure of fresh

35/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

fruits, cereals have also increased in their expenditure level, this can be attributed to the increase in the demand for each food stated above. The data also shows that there has been a change in the pattern of consumption over the year, there has been a change in the expenditure level of different foods.

When we analyse the means of these commodities then we find that a high mean expenditure level is evident in the meat and meat products while the lowest mean is evident in the eggs expenditure levels, therefore between the year 1990 to 2000 higher expenditures were in the meat and meat products, the assumption was that we assume that only our chosen foods are available in the market and that the consumer consumes all the products. The percentage mean expenditure on the foods show that 30% of expenditure goes to the meat and meat products, 24 % which is the second largest goes to the vegetables expenditure.

An analysis of nutrients consumption, statistical data show that carbohydrates is the nutrient that is highly consumed the second highest consumed is fats and the third largest is protein, lower levels of fibre and sodium are consumed per day and for this reason we can state that in a day more carbohydrates are consumed than nay other nutrient. This is due to the fact that we consume more of carbohydrates because we need carbohydrates because they provide us with energy.

From the analysis of data trends over the years it is clear that fat consumption has declined over the years, and this is most likely related the increased awareness of fat related diseases, protein levels have slightly increased over the years but the consumption of fibre and sodium have remained low and slightly changed over the years.

We also performed statistical regression analysis of our data, we investigated the relationship that exist between protein consumption and expenditure on meat and meat products, our findings show that there is a strong and positive correlation between the two variables the correlation coefficient for the two variables was 0.796, our estimated model was

36/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

Expenditure on meat = -864.52 + 17.6163 protein

The model shows that if we hold all other factors constant and the level of protein consumption per day be zero then the level of meat expenditure will be -864.52, also if we hold all other factors constant and increase the level of protein consumption by one unit then the level of meat consumption will increase by 17.6163 units, therefore we conclude that the level of protein consumption will determine the level of expenditure on meat, meat is one of the highest provider of protein and an increase in the level of protein consumed per person will lead to an increase in the level of expenditure on meat.

Our regression analysis is based on the assumption that the protein level of an individual is the only determinant of meat expenditure, the correlation of determination (R squared) show that 63.61% of the variations in meat expenditure are explained by our independent variable which is protein consumption per person.

Our next analysis was to analyse the relationship that existed between carbohydrate consumption and sugar the correlation coefficient of these two data sets was 0.76106, our estimated model was as follows: sugar expenditure = – 48.44 + 0.2647 carbohydrates this model states that if we hold all other factors constant and let the value of carbohydrate consumption be equal to zero then the level of sugar expenditure will be – 48, further if we hold all factors constant and increase the level of carbohydrates by 1 unit then the level of sugar expenditure will increase by 0.265 units.

The coefficient of correlation of determination shows that 58% of the variation in sugar expenditure is explained by the level of carbohydrates consumed by a person per day, for this reason therefore it is clear that there is a positive and moderately strong relationship between carbohydrates consumption and sugar expenditure. Our t statistics at 99% level of test show that all our estimated parameters are statistically significant.

37/38

Historical Trends In Food Expenditure And The Nutrition Levels Of The Food In The UK2

References:

Statistical government (2008) consumption levels and expenditure level of food, retrieved on 15t

h

January, available at

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=3802&Pos=2&ColRank=1

&Rank=272

Burbidge S. (1993) Statistics: An Introduction to Quantitative Research,

McGraw Hill, New York

Kroenke D.(1997) Data Processing: Fundamental, Design and Implementation, Prentice Hall publishers, New York

Norman B. (2002) Analyzing Quantitative Data, sage publishers, New York

38/38