The psychology of eating requires social context

Abstract

Nutritionally inadequate diets are among today’s greatest challenges to both public and planetary health. However, interventions aimed at changing eating behaviour in the long term have shown limited effectiveness, potentially because research has typically conceptualized eating behaviour as an individual activity despite its fundamentally social nature. In this Review, I argue for the importance of understanding eating within its natural social contexts to achieve effective, long-term change. I conceptualize eating as a social activity, review the current relevant theories, and synthesize the forms and dimensions of eating in its natural social context. Current and emerging methods for measurement and analysis are available that can capture eating in real-world settings. Empirical evidence shows that eating with others is more common than eating alone; eating takes place within specific social contexts and broad social systems; and eating serves central social functions. Researching eating behaviour in its natural social context could help to overcome the shortcomings of current theories and improve behaviour change interventions, to the benefit of health and well-being. Beyond meeting a basic need, eating behaviour shapes human health and environmental outcomes. In this Review, Mata highlights the fundamentally social nature of eating and describes how to integrate this evidence into current research on behaviour change.