Abstract:

Food waste has negative impacts on society and the environment, making it a global issue that cannot be ignored. Practical social activities aimed at promoting food conservation have been launched by governments and civil society organizations, and have gained a positive response from all sectors of society. This dataset documents individual dining and food waste data before and after the Clear Your Plate Campaign. The purpose is to provide data support for the study of food waste behaviors and the impact of interventions on food waste behaviors. The photo-coding method was used to collect individual characteristic data of 722 college students and 16 976 cafeteria dining punch cards through a four-week tracking survey. The data on individual characteristics included information on students' and their families' typical eating habits, healthy eating behaviors, food waste behaviors, and subjective perceptions. The dining card data covered daily lunch and dinner dining scenes, food composition, dining satisfaction, spending, and food waste. The data underwent pre-survey and manual quality checks. Standardised procedures were employed to ensure scientific validity and accuracy, including the use of unified data formats and the elimination of erroneous data. This dataset provides scholars with data to analyse the impact of interventions on food waste behaviour from a dynamic perspective, such as Clear Your Plate Campaign. It also offers basic data and experimental paradigms for studying food waste behaviour using the photo-coding method.

Key words: food waste behavior, photo coding method, clear your plate campaign, follow-up investigation, panel data