The factors that influence our food choices across the lifespan

International audience

Inglés. Introducing more plant-based foods, particularly fruit and vegetables (FV), in western diets is a well-acknowledged way to improve their healthiness and reduce their environmental impact. However, diets do not contain enough fruit and vegetable (FV), and a comprehensive vision of the complex network of factors that influence individual food choices is necessary to identify track towards improvement of food choices through the inclusion of more plant-based foods. The core influencing factors of food choices can be boiled down to a simple trilogy: (the individual, the food, and the context). Individual factors can be related to biological (nutritional status, development, metabolic status...) and psychological factors (eating behavior temperament, mental health, stress, food literacy...); contexts to socio-cultural (social norms, food culture...) and situational factors (food environment, time of the year, of the day; social environment...); and food-related factors to intrinsic (nutritional composition, palatability, familiarity...) and extrinsic determinants (price, packaging, labelling...). Here, I will summarize how tThe influence of these factors evolves across the lifespan, bearing in mind the utility of highlighting modifiable factors in the perspective of intervention implementation. In childhood, biology drives drastic evolutions with the newborn having specific dietary needs and limited intestinal and oral abilities, which highly constraint the diet. and tThe infant quickly developsing eating abilities with dietary experience, highlighting the importance of psychological development in relation to learning. Vegetalizing the diet only becomes relevant during complementary feeding. During this transition and up until the development of food neophobia/pickiness (by the end of the second year), introducing plant-based foods in the diet is easy simple as children easily accept a variety of foods. The child is fully dependent on the feeding context, i.e. in general the dietary choices made by his/her parents, which also reflect on the factors influencing adults' choices (i.e. cultural, financial, practical...). Later in childhood, during the developmental peak in food neophobia, introduction of plant-based foods might involve specific challenges, especially if they are not yet known by children. Adolescence, second in this regards to the first two years of life, is marked by profound biological changes (growth, hormonal development, brain remodeling...) which may alter food choices. The social environment beyond the family becomes more important and may expose to different food cues (IRL or virtual). The increasing importance of body image may create a very specific context for mental health unbalance and lead to sub-optimal choices, and ultimately eating disorders. This may create an opportunity to increase the share of foods with low energy density such as FV. However, in western environments, the food offer is highly skewed towards unhealthy foods (snacks, fast foods...) which strongly alter the opportunity to consume FV. During the transition from adolescence to adulthood, specific contextual aspects impose a remodeling of food choice criteria, e.g., leaving the family household, which imposes the development of food literacy autonomy, bearing financial constraints related to partial financial autonomy, all potentially threatening FV consumption. In adulthood, established habits tend to channel food choices.