They say you are what you eat but in all honesty, you could actually be what your friends or family eat. According to a new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, it is likely that the eating habits of a lot of people are influenced, by the way others around them eat. Researchers came to this conclusion after reviewing 15 earlier studies. Seven of the reviewed studies focused on how participants are affected by what others around them choose to eat. The other 8 reviewed studies looked at how participants changed how much food they eat due to social food intake norms.
If it came to a point subjects were told that others are eating high calorie or low calorie foods, they were more likely to eat similar kinds of food. Furthermore, the amount of food others eat seems to reflect greatly on how much participants were likely to eat. If a single participant was told that others are eating large portions of food, this participant might choose to increase his/her food intake.
Strangely enough, this eating behavior still follow trends even if the participants did not see the others eating.
Researchers believe that the reason why we follow the eating habits of others is because we want to find out where we fit in society.
"It appears that in some contexts, conforming to informational eating norms may be a way of reinforcing identity to a social group, which is in line with social identity theory," according to lead investigator Dr. Eric Robinson from the University of Liverpool said in a press release. "By this social identity account, if a person's sense of self is strongly guided by their identity as a member of their local community and that community is perceived to eat healthily, then that person would be hypothesized to eat healthily in order to maintain a consistent sense of social identity."
However, Robinson noted that more research must be done to determine how people decide on what or how to eat. The information taken from this study could one day in the future, help teach people about healthy eating habits.
"Taking these points into consideration, the findings of the present review may have implications for the development of more effective public health campaigns to promote 'healthy eating.' Policies or messages that normalize healthy eating habits or reduce the prevalence of beliefs that lots of people eat unhealthily may have beneficial effects on public health," said Robinson.
