Food psychology

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Food psychology is the psychological study of how people choose the food they eat (food choice), along with food and eating behaviors. [1] Food psychology is an applied psychology, using existing psychological methods and findings to understand food choice and eating behaviors. [2] Factors studied by food psychology include food cravings, sensory experiences of food, perceptions of food security and food safety, price, available product information such as nutrition labeling and the purchasing environment (which may be physical or online). Food psychology also encompasses broader sociocultural factors such as cultural perspectives on food, [3] public awareness of "what constitutes a sustainable diet", [4] and food marketing including "food fraud" where ingredients are intentionally motivated for economic gain as opposed to nutritional value. [5] [6] These factors are considered to interact with each other along with an individual's history of food choices to form new food choices and eating behaviors. [5]

Contents

The development of food choice is considered to fall into three main categories: properties of the food, individual differences and sociocultural influences. [1] [7] Food psychology studies psychological aspects of individual differences, although due to the interaction between factors and the variance in definitions, food psychology is often studied alongside other aspects of food choice including nutrition psychology. [7]

As of 2022, there are no specific journals for food psychology, with research being published in both nutrition and psychology journals. [4] [8]

Eating behaviors which are analysed by food psychology include disordered eating, behavior associated with food neophobia, and the public broadcasting/streaming of eating ( mukbang ). [9] [10] [11] Food psychology has been studied extensively using theories of cognitive dissonance and fallacious reasoning. [9] [12]

COVID-19

Food psychology has been used to examine how eating behaviors have been globally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Changed food preferences due to COVID-19 have been found, with both beneficial and harmful effects on food choice. [13] [14] Studies in Spain and Saudi Arabia found a reduced consumption of processed foods and junk food, and higher rates of sustainable diets, [15] [13] whereas UK residents and US university students were found to have less influence in household food choice, increased snacking behaviors and generally increased consumption of junk food. [14] [16] 48% of residents in a UK study reported increased food intake, especially for high energy foods, and a similar percentage reported increased food cravings. [17] Increased food stockpiling and reduced effects of familiarity on food choice were also observed. [13] [16]

While some participants appear to have thrived in this context, with healthier lifestyles and decision-making, others gained weight, lacked varied diets and struggled with food expense. [16]

A 2020 review found the largest effects of COVID-19 in food choice to be from lockdowns, income loss leading to reduced food security, and bereavement due to COVID-19. [18] For example, one study in Iran found 61% of the sample population experiencing food insecurity which resulted from both economic and psychological effects. [19]

An individual's need for closure, a psychological measure of desire for certainty, was found to predict food stockpiling and wasting of food. [20] A study in Chile found higher anxiety as a predictor for fast food and pastry intake, suggesting that emotional eating has been amplified due to COVID-19. [21] By comparison, a UK study found lower levels of food craving control to be the most accurate predictor of increased high energy sweet and savoury food intake, along with emotional overeating, emotional undereating, experienced satiety and enjoyment of food being found as poor predictors. [17]

The tendency to stockpile or hoard food has also been explained using the theory of planned behavior, using data collected from Vietnam that has suggested high risk perception is correlated with food stockpiling and panic buying. [22] The perception of lacking food was found higher scoring in US women than US men, and higher in Indian men compared to Indian women, suggesting that country of residence may be a moderator to how gender affects need for closure in food, based on household roles. [20]

Italy

Italy has received particular academic attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for studies of food choice as the country was one of the most severely affected by COVID-19. One study found survey results that "Around 40% of the [Italian] population perceive that strengthening the immune defences through nutrition is not important to reduce the risk of coronavirus disease". [23] Survey results suggest that cooking behaviors were increased and junk food consumption was reduced, [24] along with raised public interest in sustainability issues including sustainable food products. [25]

Ethnocentrism has been proposed as an explanation for the large change in food choice and eating behaviors of Italians during COVID-19. [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diet (nutrition)</span> Sum of food consumed by an organism

In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons. Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.

Neophobia is the fear of anything new, but is directly correlated with conditions such as OCD or autism spectrum disorder. In its milder form, it can manifest as the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine. In the context of children, the term is generally used to indicate a tendency to reject unknown or novel foods. Food neophobia, as it may be referred to, is an important concern in pediatric psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant-based diet</span> Diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods

A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods. Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of fiber-rich plant products such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. They do not need to be vegan or vegetarian but are defined in terms of low frequency of animal food consumption.

A food addiction or eating addiction is any behavioral addiction that is primarily characterized by the compulsive consumption of palatable food items which markedly activate the reward system in humans and other animals despite adverse consequences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Healthy diet</span> Type of diet

A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.

A food craving is an intense desire to consume a specific food, and is different from normal hunger. It may or may not be related to specific hunger, the drive to consume particular nutrients that is well-studied in animals. In studies of food cravings, chocolate and chocolate confectioneries almost always top the list of foods people say they crave; this craving is referred to as chocoholism. The craving of non-food items as food is called pica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palatability</span>

Palatability is the hedonic reward provided by foods or fluids that are agreeable to the "palate", which often varies relative to the homeostatic satisfaction of nutritional and/or water needs. The palatability of a food or fluid, unlike its flavor or taste, varies with the state of an individual: it is lower after consumption and higher when deprived. It has increasingly been appreciated that this can create a hunger that is independent of homeostatic needs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainable diet</span> Diet that contributes to the broader environmental and social sustainability

Sustainable diets are "dietary patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and wellbeing; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe and equitable; and are culturally acceptable". These diets are nutritious, eco-friendly, economically sustainable, and accessible to people of various socioeconomic backgrounds. Sustainable diets attempt to address nutrient deficiencies and excesses, while accounting for ecological phenomena such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and land degradation. These diets are comparable to the climatarian diet, with the added domains of economic sustainability and accessiblity.

Research into food choice investigates how people select the food they eat. An interdisciplinary topic, food choice comprises psychological and sociological aspects, economic issues and sensory aspects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of fast food</span> Overview about the criticism of fast food

Criticism of fast food includes claims of negative health effects, animal cruelty, cases of worker exploitation, children-targeted marketing and claims of cultural degradation via shifts in people's eating patterns away from traditional foods. Fast food chains have come under fire from consumer groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime fast food critic over issues such as caloric content, trans fats and portion sizes. Social scientists have highlighted how the prominence of fast food narratives in popular urban legends suggests that modern consumers have an ambivalent relationship with fast food, particularly in relation to children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social class differences in food consumption</span>

Social class differences in food consumption refers to how the quantity and quality of food varies according to a person's social status or position in the social hierarchy. Various disciplines, including social, psychological, nutritional, and public health sciences, have examined this topic. Social class can be examined according to defining factors — education, income, or occupational status — or subjective components, like perceived rank in society.

Nutrition psychology (NP) is the psychological study of the relationship between dietary intake and different aspects of psychological health. It is an applied field that uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the influence of diet on mental health. Nutrition psychology seeks to understand the relationship between nutritional behavior and mental health/well-being NP is a sub-field of psychology and more specifically of health psychology. It may be applied to numerous different fields including: psychology, dietetics, nutrition, and marketing. NP is a fairly new field with a brief history that has already started to contribute information and knowledge to psychology. There are two main areas of controversy within nutrition psychology. The first area of controversy is that the topic can be viewed in two different ways. It can be viewed as nutrition affecting psychological functions, or psychological choices and behavior influencing nutrition and health. The second controversy is the defining of what is "healthy" or "normal" as related to nutrition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sweetened beverage</span> Type of beverage

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) are any beverage with added sugar. They have been described as "liquid candy". Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages have been linked to weight gain, obesity, and associated health risks. According to the CDC, consumption of sweetened beverages is also associated with unhealthy behaviors like smoking, not getting enough sleep and exercise, and eating fast food often and not enough fruits regularly.

Emotional eating, also known as stress eating and emotional overeating, is defined as the "propensity to eat in response to positive and negative emotions". While the term commonly refers to eating as a means of coping with negative emotions, it sometimes include eating for positive emotions, such as overeating when celebrating an event or to enhance an already good mood.

The psychology of eating meat is an area of study seeking to illuminate the confluence of morality, emotions, cognition, and personality characteristics in the phenomenon of the consumption of meat. Research into the psychological and cultural factors of meat-eating suggests correlations with masculinity, support for hierarchical values, and reduced openness to experience. Because meat eating is widely practiced but is sometimes associated with ambivalence, it has been used as a case study in moral psychology to illustrate theories of cognitive dissonance and moral disengagement. Research into the consumer psychology of meat is relevant both to meat industry marketing and to advocates of reduced meat consumption.

Dietary conservatism is a foraging strategy in which individuals show a prolonged reluctance to eat novel foods, even after neophobia has been overcome. Within any given population of foragers, some will be conservative and some will be adventurous, an alternative strategy in which individuals readily accept novel food immediately after neophobia has waned. Dietary conservatism and neophobia are however distinct processes, distinguished by the persistence of an individual's reluctance to eat over repeated encounters with novel food and over long time periods.

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References

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  2. ↑ Carfora, Valentina; Cicia, Gianni; Conner, Mark (2021-09-20). "Editorial: Mind the Sustainable Food: New Insights in Food Psychology". Frontiers in Psychology. 12: 725579. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725579 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   8488082 . PMID   34616341.
  3. ↑ de Ridder, Denise; Gillebaart, Marleen (August 2022). "How food overconsumption has hijacked our notions about eating as a pleasurable activity". Current Opinion in Psychology. 46: 101324. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101324 . ISSN   2352-250X. PMID   35339981.
  4. 1 2 Carfora, Valentina; Cicia, Gianni; Conner, Mark (2021-09-20). "Editorial: Mind the Sustainable Food: New Insights in Food Psychology". Frontiers in Psychology. 12: 725579. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725579 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   8488082 . PMID   34616341.
  5. 1 2 Tsai, Fu-Sheng; Wen, Xiao-Wei; Srivastava, Shalini (2021-11-18). "Editorial: The Psychology of Food Safety and Consumption". Frontiers in Psychology. 12: 767212. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.767212 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   8638618 . PMID   34867669.
  6. ↑ Mills, S. D. H.; Tanner, L. M.; Adams, J. (2013-01-09). "Systematic literature review of the effects of food and drink advertising on food and drink-related behaviour, attitudes and beliefs in adult populations". Obesity Reviews. 14 (4): 303–314. doi:10.1111/obr.12012. ISSN   1467-7881. PMID   23297736. S2CID   24310212.
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  11. ↑ Kircaburun, Kagan; Harris, Andrew; Calado, Filipa; Griffiths, Mark D. (2020-01-06). "The Psychology of Mukbang Watching: A Scoping Review of the Academic and Non-academic Literature". International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. 19 (4): 1190–1213. doi: 10.1007/s11469-019-00211-0 . ISSN   1557-1874. S2CID   209893148.
  12. ↑ Köster, Egon Peter (July 2003). "The psychology of food choice: some often encountered fallacies". Food Quality and Preference. 14 (5–6): 359–373. doi:10.1016/s0950-3293(03)00017-x. ISSN   0950-3293.
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  17. 1 2 Buckland, Nicola J.; Swinnerton, Lucy F.; Ng, Kwok; Price, Menna; Wilkinson, Laura L.; Myers, Anna; Dalton, Michelle (March 2021). "Susceptibility to increased high energy dense sweet and savoury food intake in response to the COVID-19 lockdown: The role of craving control and acceptance coping strategies". Appetite. 158: 105017. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2020.105017. ISSN   0195-6663. PMC   8580210 . PMID   33161044.
  18. ↑ Béné, Christophe (2020-07-11). "Resilience of local food systems and links to food security – A review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks". Food Security. 12 (4): 805–822. doi:10.1007/s12571-020-01076-1. ISSN   1876-4517. PMC   7351643 . PMID   32837646.
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  20. 1 2 Brizi, Ambra; Biraglia, Alessandro (January 2021). ""Do I have enough food?" How need for cognitive closure and gender impact stockpiling and food waste during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-national study in India and the United States of America". Personality and Individual Differences. 168: 110396. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2020.110396. ISSN   0191-8869. PMC   7501171 . PMID   32982000.
  21. ↑ Landaeta-Díaz, Leslie; González-Medina, Gabriel; Agüero, Samuel Durán (September 2021). "Anxiety, anhedonia and food consumption during the COVID-19 quarantine in Chile". Appetite. 164: 105259. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2021.105259. ISSN   0195-6663. PMC   8050603 . PMID   33857546.
  22. ↑ Khoi, Bui Huy; Long, Nguyen Ngoc (2020-04-24). "An Empirical Study about the Intention to Hoard Food during COVID-19 Pandemic". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. 16 (7): em1857. doi: 10.29333/ejmste/8207 . ISSN   1305-8223. S2CID   219038977.
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  24. ↑ Caso, Daniela; Guidetti, Margherita; Capasso, Miriam; Cavazza, Nicoletta (January 2022). "Finally, the chance to eat healthily: Longitudinal study about food consumption during and after the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy". Food Quality and Preference. 95: 104275. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104275. ISSN   0950-3293. PMC   8443069 . PMID   34539093.
  25. ↑ Castellini, Greta; Savarese, Mariarosaria; Graffigna, Guendalina (2021-03-09). "The Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy on the Sustainable Food Consumption Intention From a "One Health" Perspective". Frontiers in Nutrition. 8: 622122. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2021.622122 . ISSN   2296-861X. PMC   8006295 . PMID   33791331.
  26. ↑ Migliore, Giuseppina; Rizzo, Giuseppina; Schifani, Giorgio; Quatrosi, Giuseppe; Vetri, Luigi; Testa, Riccardo (2021-10-22). "Ethnocentrism Effects on Consumers' Behavior during COVID-19 Pandemic". Economies. 9 (4): 160. doi: 10.3390/economies9040160 . hdl: 10447/556557 . ISSN   2227-7099.
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