Using Virtual Reality Food Environments to Study Individual Food Consumer Behavior in an Urban Food Environment

The objective of this research was to explore whether virtual reality can be used to study individual food consumer decision-making and behavior through a public health lens by developing a simulation of an urban food environment that included a street-level scene and three prototypical stores. Twelve participants completed the simulation and a survey. Preliminary results showed that 72.7% of participants bought food from the green grocer, 18.2% from the fast food store, and 9.1% from the supermarket. The mean presence score was 38.9 out of 49 and the mean usability score was 85.9 out of 100. This experiment demonstrates that virtual reality should be further considered as a tool for studying food consumer behavior within a food environment.