Food on Mind: 20 Surprising Insights From Food Psychology
When low-fat foods are bad, why people eat tuna eyes and fried bat, America’s dysfunctional relationship with food and more…
We invest food with so much meaning, and rightly so: it changes our mood, it strengthens our relationships when we eat together and food choices express who we are.
But food has a dark side. We worry about eating unhealthy, about weight gain and how we can control our intake. Eating is not just pleasure; it is also about the struggle with ourselves.
In the last few decades we’ve learnt an enormous amount about the psychology of food. Here are 20 of my favourite findings.
When low-fat foods are bad, why people eat tuna eyes and fried bat, America’s dysfunctional relationship with food and more…
We invest food with so much meaning, and rightly so: it changes our mood, it strengthens our relationships when we eat together and food choices express who we are.
But food has a dark side. We worry about eating unhealthy, about weight gain and how we can control our intake. Eating is not just pleasure; it is also about the struggle with ourselves.
In the last few decades we’ve learnt an enormous amount about the psychology of food. Here are 20 of my favourite findings.
1. America’s terrible relationship with food
Americans have a very dysfunctional relationship with food.
Compared with the French, Belgians and Japanese, Americans get less pleasure from food and are most obsessed with whether it is ‘healthy’ or not (Rozin et al., 1999).
In contrast, the French have fewer hang-ups and enjoy their food the most. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that they are also half as likely to be obese as Americans.
Americans, then, get the worst of all worlds: they are more dissatisfied with what they eat, are more concerned about whether it is healthy, try to make more dietary changes and are twice as likely to be obese as the French.
Something has clearly gone...
