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Impact of Perceived Healthiness of Food on Food Choices and Intake

  • Psychological Issues (M Hetherington and V Drapeau, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Healthy eating is an important determinant of health, but adherence to dietary guidelines remains a public health concern. Identifying factors that impact dietary habits is therefore important to facilitate healthy eating. One widely used strategy to help consumers make healthier food choices is nutrition information, such as labeling and claims. Despite the intention of these strategies to improve decision making, they can also be misunderstood or misinterpreted by consumers. The aim of this review is to explore food perceptions by examining how cognitive factors influence perceived healthiness of food, and the impact of perceived healthiness of food on food choices and intake. Overall findings of this review suggest that cognitive factors, such as type of food and branding, significantly contribute to judgmental bias and have an impact on perceived healthiness while not consistently or systematically influencing choice and intake.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Marie-Pierre Gagnon-Girouard as well as the section editor for their thoughtful revision of the manuscript and their relevant comments and suggestions.

Dr. Provencher reports grants from the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Danone Institute of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INAF (Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods), Laval University, Pavillon des services, 2440 Boul. Hochelaga, Quebec City, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Véronique Provencher & Raphaëlle Jacob

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  1. Véronique Provencher
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  2. Raphaëlle Jacob
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Correspondence to Véronique Provencher.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This review article contains studies with human subjects performed by Véronique Provencher. As indicated in the papers cited, these studies were all approved by authorized ethics committees (i.e., Office of Research Ethics at the University of Toronto and Laval University Ethics Committee)

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Psychological Issues

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Provencher, V., Jacob, R. Impact of Perceived Healthiness of Food on Food Choices and Intake. Curr Obes Rep 5, 65–71 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-016-0192-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-016-0192-0

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