Encyclopedia of Nutritional Psychology

Flourishing, good life, happiness, welfare, and well-being.

Psychology has two popular conceptions of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is achieved through experiences of pleasure and enjoyment, while eudaimonic happiness is achieved through experiences of meaning and…

Eustress is positive stress arising from situations or events perceived as exciting, motivating, or challenging. It can enhance performance, promote personal growth, and contribute to a sense of accomplishment.

Executive function is a set of top-down prefrontal processes — inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility — that enable goal-directed action; in nutritional psychology, it underlies the self-regulation of eating, dietary decision-making, and resisting impulses toward palatable, energy-dense foods.

External eating is the tendency to eat in response to external cues such as the sight, smell, or availability of food rather than internal feelings of hunger or fullness.

Fad diets are popular but often short-lived dietary trends or weight-loss plans that promote quick results. They usually focus on specific foods or eating patterns and may lack scientific support…

Faltering growth, now termed faltering weight and historically failure to thrive, refers to weight gain in infancy or childhood that is slower than expected for age and sex.

Dietary fats are an essential group of macronutrients that provide energy and support cell structure, hormone production, nutrient absorption, and other physiological functions. Fats include saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and trans fats, with different fatty acids having different biological roles.

Fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) is a medical procedure in which processed stool from a rigorously screened, healthy donor is transferred into the gastrointestinal tract of a recipient — via colonoscopy,…

Fermentation is a metabolic process where microorganisms, such as bacteria, break down complex carbohydrates in the digestive system, producing various byproducts, including short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and gases like carbon…