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What everyone else is eating: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of informational eating norms on eating behavior.
Robinson et. al (2014) assessed the weight of evidence that experimentally manipulated information about eating habits has an impact on food choice and intake, and also reviewed studies on whether sharing with people what others’ eating habits look like has an influence on the same matter (food-related decision making). Using a narrative synthesis approach searching on 3 electronic databases (PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and the Social Sciences Citation Index) a total of fifteen experimental studies were selected to be reviewed. Meta-analyses were used to synthesise the effect that informational eating norms have on quantity of food consumed. There was evidence that both high and low intake norms (both p-values <=0.005) exerted moderate influence on consumption quantity. Norms were consistently found to play an influential role in food choices, while norm information about others’ low-energy and high-energy eating habits was significantly linked to an increase in adoption of similar food choices. This study clarifies that eating norms can be an important tool to promote healthy diet choices since they can have such an influence on the choice and amount of food eaten. [NPID: eating habits, psychosocial, intake, norms, food choice, decision making].
Year: 2014
