Adherence
Lower intertemporal discount rates (higher patience) are associated with the selection of foods with higher nutritional quality, independent of active health consideration.
People who are naturally more patient (low discounters) tend to choose healthier foods. This trait is stable but can be influenced by interventions like episodic future thinking, which asks individuals to imagine detailed future experiences, thereby reducing impulsive choices and promoting healthier diets.
We also find that participants with lower discount rates selected foods with higher nutritional quality compared to high discount-rate participants, corroborating previous literature.
Why this rating
Robust experimental design, controlling for demographics.
Source
The relationship of active consideration of health outcomes and intertemporal preferences to choice process variables and nutrition: evidence from an experiment on food choice
Olivier Tuyizere et al. · Frontiers in Behavioral Economics · 2023
DOI 10.3389/frbhe.2023.1219281
More from this paper
- Actively considering the health impacts of food choices during the decision-making process significantly increases the nutritional quality of selected foods, independent of an individual's intertemporal discount rate.Good
- Actively considering health outcomes during food choice leads to longer decision times, increased use of nutrition information, and consideration of healthier product sets, distinguishing it from habitual decision-making.Good
Related findings · Adherence
- Regular physical activity (at least 150 minutes/week of moderate-intensity) reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality by 20-30% and lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 25-35%.Strong
- Increasing physical activity from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one in middle adulthood significantly reduces the risk of coronary events compared to remaining sedentary.Strong
- Resistance exercise is the only intervention capable of consistently restoring muscle function and strength in sarcopenia, partially overcoming age-related anabolic resistance.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →