Using survey data collected from approximately 3,000 young adults in 2010, The Generation X Report explores how Americans 36 to 39 years old engage in shopping, cooking and sharing food. As it has been for generations, food is both necessary for sustaining life and a source of sharing and community building. Although many of the young adults in Generation X have grown up surrounded by fast food outlets and advertisements, a substantial majority of these young adults are actively involved in shopping and cooking, preparing an average of 42 meals per month. Comparatively, they reported buying about eight fast food meals each month and three meals in a “good” restaurant.

“These results suggest that young adults in Generation X are actively involved in learning about and selecting the food that they consume, talking with their friends about food matters, and sharing cooking for and entertaining guests in their home,” says Jon D. Miller, author of The Generation X Report. “Young adults who are married reported more frequent shopping and cooking by the female member of the family, but young married men also displayed a relatively high level of food involvement – shopping, cooking, talking to friends, and watching television shows about food and cooking.”

According to Miller, about nine percent of Generation X adults are strongly committed to buying organic foods whenever possible, while 39% report that they buy organic sometimes – suggesting that availability, price, and other factors enter into the buying decision. Half of the young adults in Generation X indicated that they rarely or never buy organic foods.

Most Generation X young adults indicated a general awareness of genetically modified foods, but displayed a relatively lower level of understanding of the process of genetic modification or its use in domestic food supplies. Using a set of five questions, the LSAY found that the adults in Generation X had a mean score of 3.8 on a zero-to-10 scale. These results suggests that many Generation X young adults have a limited exposure to and understanding of the food production process – traditional or genetic – and that they cannot readily identify products or issues associated with genetic modification.

Among other findings:

• The general level of scientific literacy was a strong predictor of the level of understanding of genetically modified foods and trust sources of expertise such as the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and university-based agricultural researchers.
• Young adults cook for and entertain guests in their home about once each month and join in group cooking activities with other adults five or six times each year.
• To learn about foods and cooking, young adults reported that they watch a food and cooking show on television about four times each month, look for food information online about three times each month, and read a magazine story about food twice a month. The also get and give food information by talking to friends about food about six times each month and they share recipes by email about once each month.

“The young adults in Generation X are socially active and food is an important part of that process,” says Miller. “These young adults have not withdrawn from interacting with their friends and neighbors to stare at a computer screen or a television set as some social critics have suggested. Many of these young adults are in two-job marriages and two-thirds of Generation X young adults have minor children at home. They are very busy and food preparation and sharing become one part of their family dynamic – both husbands and wives share in buying and preparing food.”

The fourth Generation X Report will be issued in July, 2012, on the topic of attitudes toward climate change. Subsequent reports will cover space exploration, citizenship and voting, and personal and family privacy in the Electronic Era.

Using survey data collected from approximately 3,000 young adults during the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza epidemic – the first serious infectious disease this group had ever experienced – The Generation X Report explores how Americans ages 36-39 kept abreast of the issue and what actions they eventually took to protect themselves and their families. The results from the LSAY found that only about one in five young adults in their late 30’s received a flu shot during the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic. But about 65 percent were at least moderately concerned about the flu, and nearly 60 percent said they were following the issue very or moderately closely.

“These results suggest that young adults in Generation X did reasonably well in their first encounter with a major epidemic,” says Jon D. Miller, author of The Generation X Report. “Those with minor children at home were at the greatest risk, and they responded accordingly, with higher levels of awareness and concern.”

According to Miller, understanding Generation X reactions to this recent threat may help public health officials deal more effectively with future epidemics.

The results also show that even though a majority of Generation X young adults felt that they were ‘well informed’ or ‘very well informed’ about the issue, overall they scored only moderately well on an Index of Influenza Knowledge, a series of five items designed to test the level of knowledge about viral infections generally and about the swine flu epidemic specifically.

Among other findings:

• Young adults with minor children at home were most likely to follow the news about influenza closely and were most concerned about the swine flu epidemic.
• Young adults were most likely to report getting information about the epidemic from friends, co-workers and family members. In the month before the survey, they reported having about nine such conversations, compared to getting news about the flu less than three times via print or broadcast media, and about five times from searching the internet.
• The most trusted sources of information about the influenza epidemic were physicians, followed by the National Institutes of Health, pharmacists at local drug stores, and nurses from county health departments. The least trusted sources were YouTube videos, drug company commercials, and Wikipedia articles.

“In the decades ahead, the young adults in Generation X will encounter numerous other crises – some biomedical, some environmental, and others yet to be imagined,” says Miller. “They will have to acquire, organize and make sense of emerging scientific and technical information, and the experience of coping with the swine flu epidemic suggests how they will meet that challenge.”

The third Generation X Report will be issued in April 2012, on the topic of food and cooking. Subsequent reports will cover climate, space exploration, and citizenship and voting.

Miller notes that “the LSAY has had one of the highest response rate of any national longitudinal study, but that users of the results – journalists, Congressional staff, and public officials – continue to look carefully at the percentage of eligible participants who actually respond.” Miller thinks that the strong LSAY response rate reflects a combination of several years of prior experience with the study and a record of sharing results with the participants. The current series of reports – The Generation X Reports – have been positively received by LSAY participants and appears to have stimulated an increased response rate.

If you are a participant in the LSAY and your address has changed during the last year, you can use the Participants page on this web site to report your change of address. If you have not received an email or a printed version of the 2011 questionnaire, you can send us a message on the Contact Us page, or you can call our toll free number at 1-800-984-5271.