Food choice: Behavioral aspects

Determinants of food choice are broad and include policies, prices, settings and context, as well as interpersonal factors, such as family, cultural, and peer effects. This review focuses more narrowly on food choices at the individual level by providing an overview of various methods and tools that have been used to understand psychological, cognitive, and biological factors that influence food choices. Topics covered include measures used to assess food choices, industrial research on consumer needs, and developments in technology to study food choices. The goal is to provide an understanding of the competing factors that influence an individual's food choices – from basic biology to interactions with the food environment – that will facilitate a personalized approach to improving food choices.