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Updated: Aug 5, 2026
Assessment of Social Transmission of Food Preferences Behaviors
Published on: January 25, 2018
Food inflation, nutrition behavior, food insecurity, and anxiety: a Bayesian network analysis among Turkish adults
Hande Ongun Yilmaz1, Sedat Arslan2, Salim Yilmaz3,4
1Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Bandirma Onyedi Eylul University, Balikesir, Türkiye.
Background:
Food inflation is a pervasive economic stressor that may disrupt nutritional behaviors and amplify food insecurity, yet the complex pathways linking these phenomena to psychological distress remain poorly understood. This study aimed to map the conditional dependency structure among food inflation-related behavioral changes, food insecurity, and anxiety in Turkish adults using Bayesian Network analysis.
Methods:
A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among 1,042 Turkish adults (72.9% female; 57.0% aged 18-24) between November and December 2025. The Effect of Food Inflation on Nutrition Behavior (EFINUB), The Impact of Food Inflation on Consumer Behavior (IFI-ConB), Food Insecurity Experience Scale, and Beck Anxiety Inventory were administered alongside sociodemographic measures. A Conditional Gaussian Bayesian Network with 23 nodes was learned using bootstrap-averaged structure learning (1,000 resamples, strength threshold ≥ 0.85), followed by Markov blanket analysis, conditional probability queries, and what-if policy simulations.
Results:
The network revealed 25 directed arcs organized into three isolated clusters: demographic, dietary habits, and scale-relationship. Food insecurity emerged as the sole member of the anxiety Markov blanket. Severe food insecurity rose from 1.2% to 48.2% (an absolute increase of 47.0 percentage points) across Low to High Food Consumption Impact groups. Simulating universal food security produced the largest anxiety reduction (-61.0%), whereas partial behavioral improvement reduced food insecurity but not anxiety. Sensitivity analyses confirmed structural robustness across threshold specifications (29 arcs at 0.70) and gender-balanced resampling (Jaccard = 0.808).
Conclusion:
Food insecurity is the primary conduit through which food inflation-related behavioral disruptions translate into anxiety. Policy responses may benefit from prioritizing direct food security support over partial behavioral assistance when the goal is to reduce anxiety burden.
