Abstract
The world's food systems and environments have been changing dramatically, concomitant with changes in over- and undernutrition. We elaborate the science of food choice to better understand, analyze, and respond to relationships between changing food environments and food choice. The science of food choice is concerned with generating knowledge about causal drivers of food choice decision making processes and behavior within immediate food and social environments. Three fundamental and interconnected questions undergird this science; 1) what do people eat from the options available and accessible?; 2) how do people interact with food environments?; and 3) why do people decide to acquire, prepare, distribute, and consume foods as they do? Not all food choice behavior is rational, reflexive, or discrete, but is embedded in wider activities of daily lives. The science of food choice involves understanding influences from multiple systems that drive food choice for deriving sound, actionable policy, and programmatic recommendations.
Global food systems are altering local food environments that serve as the contexts of food choice. Food choice is defined as the processes by which people consider, acquire, prepare, store, distribute, and consume foods and beverages (Sobal et al., 2009). Globally, food systems are changing in response to broad and rapid social, technological, and environmental shifts (Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, 2016; HLPE, 2014, 2017) including emergence of complex global trade systems, establishment of new markets in previously unreached settings and contexts, and involvement of multinational private sector actors. These changes alter the type, quantity, price, and healthfulness of foods available to and chosen by consumers (HLPE, 2017; Holdsworth and Landais, 2019; Pinstrup-Andersen and Watson, 2011). Food system changes do not occur in a uniform linear fashion across countries, and both developed and developing countries have experienced and responded to these changes in different ways (Lusk and McCluskey, 2018; Ruben et al., 2019). Complex and unprecedented food system changes present unique challenges for the promotion of sustainable healthy diets in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) that will require context-specific and adaptable policies and other actions (Swinburn et al., 2013; Turner et al., 2018; Willett et al., 2019). There is little evidence on how best to improve food choice in LMIC experiencing food systems changes. An understanding of causal linkages between food systems, food environments, and food choice is essential to develop actions that improve food choice for sustainable healthy diets. In this commentary we elaborate the science of food choice to provide a common language and constructs for research on the causal linkages between food systems, food environments, and food choice in LMIC.
