The underrated role of psychosocial determinants of dietary choices

The evolution of research in human nutrition has allowed an unprecedented progress at identifying key components of the diet that would so vastly affect human health (Wang et al. 2023). We can hypothesise that the majority of global chronic non-communicable diseases could be prevented with lifestyle intervention, including adequate diet quality (Venkatesan 2024). National and international bodies exert numerous efforts to establish the best guidelines in order to identify an “optimal” dietary intake of nutrients, food groups and overall dietary patterns (Herforth et al. 2019). There is ongoing research concerning the best dietary model to adopt for the preservation of human and planetary health (Springmann et al. 2020). In this context, assessing human needs for nutrients and assuring their adequacy with appropriate dietary choices are of paramount importance for public health experts. While diet quality from a nutrient point of view remains the culprit for a healthy diet, there is growing interest for other aspects that may be equally important to determine healthy (or unhealthy) dietary choices and yet being largely unexplored. For instance, mechanisms explaining the psychosocial factors influencing eating behaviours may include food emotion, mental health, mood and pleasure (Walker-Clarke et al. 2022). Perceptions and emotions related to certain foods may positively or negatively affect dietary intakes (Caso and Vecchio 2022). These choices may be influenced by social and psychological influences: among the former, societal facilitators and social environment may play a role, while among the latter, impulsivity, attitudes and perceptions have been accounted for as potentially responsible for dietary choices.

In this issue of the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, a few articles explored the traditional concept of diet quality in relation to dietary choices and health. An article from Lotti et al. (2024) evaluated the level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet and adequacy to national dietary recommendations in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals. The authors emphasised the insufficient consumption of various food groups, such as vegetables, bread, legumes, fish and milk and dairy products, confirming the general observation of an abandonment of traditional dietary patterns (Godos 2023). Another study from Kazemi et al. (2024) further reported that variety, aside quantity, would affect the dietary nutritional content in antioxidants, vitamins and phytochemicals in general from fruit and vegetables. Still concerning nutrients, the study of Golzarand et al. (2024) investigated the association between carbohydrate intake and metabolically unhealthy phenotype, reporting that individuals with higher low-carbohydrate dietary score were less likely to be metabolically unhealthy obese. Two studies finally investigated the nutritional relevance of some products, namely fruit juices (Salar et al. 2024) and pasta (Atzler et al. 2024), showing that agro-technological interventions on such food stuff would assure an adequate content in (poly)phenols and fibre, respectively.

Aside from the nutritional content, some studies also explored other aspects of food consumption. In the study by Navarra et al. (2024), the relation between impulsivity traits and actions towards consumption of eco-sustainable foods has been investigated. Specifically, individuals with a lower tendency to act impulsively (in food choices) and a lower tendency towards a dysfunctional emotional eating (i.e. eating in response to negative emotions) reported finding easily available eco-sustainable foods in their environment and showed higher levels of behavioural intention and perceived responsibility. On the other hand, impulsivity was found to play an important role in the context of non-sustainable diets. With these findings the authors suggest that impulsivity may be implicated in individuals’ food choices and it may be related to food availability. Hence, building an environment with higher availability of healthy eco-sustainable food stuff could produce benefits at societal level by shaping more positive food choices. There is a need to better understand what is determining food choices among pleasure, healthiness and convenience. Such aspects of research on human nutrition remain widely underrated and warrant further attention.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

None.