Cyber Food Swamps: Investigating the Impacts of Online-to-Offline Food Delivery Platforms on Healthy Food Choices

2024-09-25

arXiv.org

AI Summary

This study investigates how online-to-offline (O2O) food delivery platforms shape users’ healthy dietary choices through the online food environment—particularly the exposure density of fast-food restaurants—thereby revealing the phenomenon of “online food swamps” and its causal impact on urban residents’ dietary health. Leveraging large-scale real-world order data, the research integrates comparative analysis of offline versus online food environments, multivariate regression, and a quasi-natural experiment design. It is the first to conceptualize and empirically validate the “online food swamp” construct. Results show that a 10-percentage-point increase in the online share of fast-food restaurants raises users’ probability of ordering fast food by 22.0%, with persistent and heterogeneous effects across demographic subgroups. Systematic disparities emerge by gender, income level, and age. The findings provide critical empirical evidence and a theoretical framework for digital platform governance aimed at promoting public nutritional health.

Technology Category

• Search and Optimization: Algorithm Configuration
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Humans and AI: Intelligent User Interfaces

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• Responsible Web: Mitigating online harms, including harassment, spam, and fake reviews
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience

Abstract

Online-to-offline (O2O) food delivery platforms have greatly expanded urban residents' access to a wide range of food options by allowing convenient ordering from distant food outlets. However, concerns persist regarding the nutritional quality of delivered food, particularly as the impact of O2O food delivery platforms on users' healthy food remains unclear. This study leverages large-scale empirical data from a leading O2O delivery platform to comprehensively analyze online food choice behaviors and how they are influenced by the online exposure to fast food restaurants, i.e., online food environment. Our analyses reveal significant variations in food preferences across demographic groups and city sizes, where male, low-income, and younger users are more likely to order fast food via O2O platforms. Besides, we also perform a comparative analysis on the food exposure differences in offline and online environments, confirming that the extended service ranges of O2O platforms can create larger"cyber food swamps". Furthermore, regression analysis highlights that a higher ratio of fast food orders is associated with"cyber food swamps", areas characterized by a higher proportion of accessible fast food restaurants. A 10% increase in this proportion raises the probability of ordering fast food by 22.0%. Moreover, a quasi-natural experiment substantiates the long-term causal effect of online food environment changes on healthy food choices. These findings underscore the need for O2O food delivery platforms to address the health implications of online food choice exposure, offering critical insights for stakeholders aiming to improve dietary health among urban populations.

Problem

• Impact of O2O platforms on healthy food choices
• Demographic variations in fast food ordering via O2O
• Online food environment's role in creating 'cyber food swamps'

Innovation

• Leverages large-scale O2O platform data analysis
• Compares offline and online food exposure differences
• Uses quasi-natural experiment for causal effects