What Drives Our Relationship With Food?

In his review of John Allen's book The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship With Food, Regan Gurung notes the "debate on the values of different components of food," and reminds us "food has been explored from many different angles—politics, economics, public health." Allen's book focuses on "different elements of the thesis that how we think about food is a function of our evolutionary history and culture." I would suggest that how we think about food today is driven less by evolutionary history and more by what is good for agribusiness and the food industry, presented to us in marketing and advertising campaigns.

How do psychologists and others interested in behavior change address problematic relationships with food that are likely produced and maintained by using the very science that psychologists use to alter these behaviors? Is it individual willpower or marketing genius?

Read the Review

I Think, Therefore I Am Hungry: The Mind, Food, and Evolution
By Regan A. R. Gurung
      PsycCRITIQUES, 2013 Vol 58(4)