Impact of today’s lifestyle on the food choices and nutritional status of 18+ age group




Post Covid With spike in co-morbidities and due to economic and social crisis, change in lifestyle pattern has been observed which determines the food choice individual makes. Keeping post covid scenario in mind, a study on impact of today’s lifestyle on the food choices and their nutritional status among sample with age group of 18+ was taken up. Is there any connection between brain function and food choices ? 

Food choices depends on several elements that changes time to time. very interesting results  were observed majority of participants with co-morbidity like hypertension and diabetes were more cautious about ingredients that go in the products  and were  aware about the nutritional labels. This study highlights working class individuals make fast food choice more often while individuals working from home prefer home cooked fresh meals. 

Critical review and future prospect 

The main factor that drives the choice of food is the hunger balance and the satiety signals of the body along with other range of factors. Various social, religious, financial and situational clues affect the food choice individual makes. Most of the individuals eat a particular food not because it's healthy but to feel happy but to overcome negative effects of anxiety, stress, depression, to cope up with boredom or to get distracted from a situation, to enjoy the experience.

Taking nutritional label awareness into consideration, it was seen 31.1% of the total consumers who participated in the survey gave importance to ingredient list before buying a product while 8.5% are not bothered by the labels. 25.5 % had neutral responses towards it. 20.8% are likely to buy products after reading the ingredients while 14.7% are least expected to read. When questioned to them about packed foods consumption 25.5% didn't prefer ready to eat packet fast food for daily use while 3.8% of the total consumer prefer using the packed ready to eat food. 29.2% wasn’t sure about their opinion. 30.2% feel they more likely won’t use ready to eat packet food in future.

From the start of  COVID-19 pandemic, nutrition had gained its importance for improving the immunity of individuals. Hence results evidently showed population was more conscious while making choices when compared to the period before it. To bring out a change in dietary behaviour amongst populations is not a very easy task. Physiological factors like personality and mood of individual can also have an influence on choice of food individual makes. From past couple of years we have seen trend which shows there is a need to create awareness about the present nutritional importance and health information to the buyers by referring  food products rather than the nutrients.(Shepherd, 2005). 

The results coming from this study can be potentially be helpful for different investors of food companies and researchers. In future this research can invite more intervention towards developing nutritional policy. How food choice behaviours changes amongst the population over generation needs further researches as time changes. 

Article by Ushakiran Sisodia R.D  Msc Gold medallist ,PGDBM ,CDE & Sanjana Rao Msc Dietetics  and Applied nutrition (MNT) Nanavati Max superspeciality hospital Mumbai India 

 

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