Axis 2 - Behavioral research

Axis 2 - Behavioral research

The themes and objectives of Axis 2 are:

Decision-making processes related to food choices

• Further develop knowledge on the relationship between cultural practices associated with the food heritage and food choices made by consumers, with particular interest for respecting the autonomy of the eater and the legitimacy of calling upon tradition as ethical justification for food practices and choices.
• Identify the determinants of food choices in experimental contexts resembling a real-life context like during purchases at a grocery store, at the cafeteria or at a restaurant.
• Evaluate decision-making behaviours guiding food choices according to characteristics used to describe food like the pleasure of eating, health and sustainable development, and according to the profiles of the persons and underlying motivational processes.
• Analyses the internal discourse as a determinant element of eating behaviour related to nutritional misinformation omnipresent on social media.

Food behaviours

• Document biographical events at the source of problematic and pathological food behaviours.
• Document, in a natural habitat, relationships between emotions, daily stressors and the adoption of problematic and pathological food behaviours.

Interventions

• Study the diversity of responses to interventions by characterising, among others, the neurobehavioural factors of individuals that respond best to a nutritional intervention in order to improve its effectiveness.
• Identify the facilitating factors and barriers to adopting healthy eating habits.
• Identify the determinants and elements of maintaining long term healthy eating habits as well as the optimal conditions and synergies that can be applied in the context of an intervention in order to support adequately maintaining long term food changes.