Encyclopedia of Nutritional Psychology

The sensory-perceptual aspects of our diet-related experience, including sight, smell, taste, and sound that influence our dietary intake.

The Diet-Interoceptive Relationship (DIR) is a core element of nutritional psychology describing the bidirectional link between dietary intake and interoception — how internal sensations of hunger, satiety, and post-ingestive signals guide eating, and how diet in turn shapes interoceptive awareness.

The Diet-Mental Health Relationship (DMHR) is an umbrella term used within the field of nutritional psychology. It represents a multifaceted concept serving as a conceptual framework encompassing the intricate and…

The relationship between dietary intake and the social and environmental factors that influence eating behavior, including peers, family, culture, community, socioeconomic conditions, and the broader food environment. 

Dietary acculturation is the process by which individuals or groups from one culture come into contact with and adopt elements of another culture specifically related to diet. This exchange can…

The Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) is a scoring system that quantifies the inflammatory potential of an individual's diet by weighting intake of specific dietary components against their empirically established effects on circulating inflammatory biomarkers. (CNP, 2026)

A dietary pattern describes the overall combination, variety, proportions, and habitual frequency of foods and beverages consumed over time. This approach includes patterns such as the Mediterranean and MIND diets rather than focusing on isolated nutrients.

The perception of internal bodily states and sensations we experience in relation to dietary intake (both short- and long-term).

The digestive system refers to the network of organs that breaks down food, absorbs nutrients and water, and eliminates waste. It comprises the gastrointestinal tract (mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine,…

Disordered eating describes irregular or harmful eating patterns that fall short of diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. Examples include dieting, compulsive eating, restrictive eating, and inflexible or irregular meal patterns.