Project

Navigating the current food environment: The potential role of food spatial memory (biases) on eating behaviour

The modern food landscape boasts an abundance of cheap and palatable high-caloric foods. However, not everyone overeats and develops obesity, suggesting large individual differences exist in how one navigates and responds to the current 'obesogenic' food environment. A recent finding suggests a possible underlying source of these differences is an individual’s so-called food spatial memory biases. Yet literature on biases in food spatial memory in humans, and its potential dietary consequences within the context of a modern food setting, is at present lacking.

Therefore, this inter-disciplinary project aims to investigate the potential influence of individualsspatial memory (biases) for specific foods on eating behaviour, moderating factors and underlying mechanisms of these food spatial memory biases, as well as behaviour change strategies to promote healthier food navigation. Through the means of lab and field studies the interplay between the food environment, senses, cognition, and eating behaviour will be researched in order to help address the question of why people eat what they eat

This project is funded by the Edema-Steernberg Foundation.