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Nutrition psychology


Nutrition psychology (NP) is the psychological study of how cognitive choices, such as meal decisions, influence nutrition, psychological health, and overall health. Nutrition psychology seeks to understand the relationship between nutritional behavior and mental health/well-being. NP is a sub-field of psychology and more specifically of health psychology. It may be applied to numerous different fields including: psychology, dietetics, nutrition, and marketing. NP is a fairly new field with a brief history that has already started to contribute information and knowledge to psychology. There are two main areas of controversy within nutrition psychology. The first area of controversy is that the topic can be viewed as nutrition affecting psychological functions or can be viewed as psychological choices and behavior influencing nutrition and health. The second controversy being the defining of what is "healthy" or "normal" as related to nutrition.

Nutrition is defined as "the act or process of nourishing or being nourished; specifically: the sum of the processes by which an animal or plant takes in and utilizes food substances" and psychology is defined as "the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity," in this case the particular field is nutrition. Therefore, nutrition psychology is the study of mind and behavior in relation to the process of taking in and utilizing food.

Today, over one third of American adults are considered "obese" and nutrition psychology aims to explain what psychological reasons may be behind this and other health trends. Nutrition psychology looks at the internal psychological effects of why people do what they do, and how they are shaped and influenced by outside stimuli.

Nutrition psychology is a field that is still in its early stages of development. With obesity a continually growing problem in the United States and abroad, nutrition psychology is gaining importance and popularity in society today. As it has grown, nutrition psychology has directly and indirectly influenced research on dieting, food labels, the way food is marketed, food technology, obesity, and the attitude of the public towards food, among other topics.


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