The Missing Social Link? A review of “The Psychology of Eating Requires Social Context”

Poor diets are one of the biggest threats to both human and planetary health today². They carry a heavier burden of disease and early death than alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and unsafe sex together³, and are linked to higher rates of poor mental and physical health^4,5.
Despite this, existing behavioural interventions aimed at changing how people eat have produced disappointingly small effects to date⁶.

In her recent review, Mata argues that there is a specific reason for these underwhelming results, namely, that the field has built its theories and interventions around eating as something individuals do, when in reality, eating is deeply embedded in social and cultural contexts1. Even in northern European countries, which tend to be cast as highly individualistic, only about a third of meals are eaten alone, and 42 to 46 per cent are shared with family⁷. If most eating happens with others, then theories and interventions that ignore
the social setting are working with an incomplete model of the behaviour they are trying to change.

Core

The review builds its argumentation in four connected steps.

1. The author reconceptualises eating as a deeply social activity and identifies ten social forms of eating, organised by who is present, how often the situation occurs, and where it takes place. These range from everyday domestic and institutional
   meals to digitalised commensality (such as Zoom dinners), commercial settings, and ceremonial or political occasions.
2. The author examines current theories. Over 80 behaviour change theories exist, and most acknowledge some form of social influence, but the specific social agents involved and the mechanisms through which they shape eating are rarely specified.
3. Based on this, the author introduces a distinction between three levels of social context, namely (1) the micro-level of intraindividual cognitions about the social world, (2) the meso-level of personally known social agents such as family members or
   colleagues, (3) the macro level of broad socio-structural factors, and identifies that the meso-level is precisely where existing research is most inconclusive and sparse.
4. The author examines methods for capturing social eating in real-world settings, reasoning that emerging tools such as wearable chewing detection, ambient sound recording, geolocation, and virtual reality might complement self-report and laboratory designs to address the temporal and contextual variability that defines social eating.

Results

Broadly, the effects of social eating depend on who is present, as well as the frequency and setting of the shared eating context.

1. Family meals were consistently linked with better dietary and weight outcomes in children and adolescents, and with lower rates of depression, disordered eating and suicidal ideation.
2. Romantic partners were shown to converge dietarily after moving in together, with women typically increasing meat intake and men eating more vegetables.
3. Eating in schools generally supported healthier eating in students through peer and teacher modelling.
4. Workplace eating was less conclusive, and effects depended on team dynamics and management support.
5. Digitalised eating shows two directions. Video meals with familiar people can mirror the benefits of family meals, but screen-accompanied eating is also linked to distraction and increased food intake.

Across contexts, caloric intake tended to be lowest when eating alone and highest when eating with friends.

Implications

For future research, the review’s findings imply the following:

1. Theory development should refine existing frameworks by specifying specific social dynamics, such as relational power asymmetries, relationship quality, as well as a comprehensive underlying mechanism.
2. Measurement should move towards longitudinal, ecologically valid designs that combine sensing technologies with experience sampling to capture how social influence on eating unfolds over time.
3. Structural contexts must be taken seriously, because socioeconomic position shapes which social-contextual processes are even possible.
4. A more comprehensive understanding of health should treat shared meals as a setting where dietary, mental health, and environmental outcomes are jointly negotiated; that is, family decisions about meat consumption illustrate how social
   eating contexts can drive shifts in both individual and societal behaviour.

In conclusion, the review argues that integrating the social context into eating behaviour research should not be viewed as a precondition for progress, emphasising that eating sits at the intersection of food systems, social processes, and individual choice. In turn, if
interventions continue to target individuals in isolation or “artificially constructed” social contexts, we are likely to keep observing small or inconclusive effects in the field.

References

1. Mata, J. (2026). The psychology of eating requires social context. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-026-00581-y
2. Rockström, J., Thilsted, S. H., Willett, W. C., Gordon, L. J., Herrero, M., Hicks, C. C., Mason-D’Croz, D., Rao, N., Springmann, M., Wright, E. C., Agustina, R., Bajaj, S., Bunge, A. C., Carducci, B., Conti, C., Covic, N., Fanzo, J., Forouhi, N. G., Gibson, M. F., Gu, X., … DeClerck, F. (2025). The EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems. Lancet, 406(10512), 1625–1700.
   https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01201-2
3. Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (2016). Food systems and diets: facing the challenges of the 21st century. London, UK. https://glopan.org/sites/default/files/ForesightReport.pdf
4. Afshin, A., Sur, P. J., Fay, K. A., Cornaby, L., Ferrara, G., Salama, J. S., Mullany, E. C., Abate, K. H., Abbafati, C., Abebe, Z., Afarideh, M., Aggarwal, A., Agrawal, S., Akinyemiju, T., Alahdab, F., Bacha, U., Bachman, V. F., Badali, H., Badawi, A., … Murray, C. J. L. (2019). Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet, 393(10184), 1958–1972. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30041-8
5. Zhang, H., Li, M., Mo, L., Luo, J., Shen, Q., & Quan, W. (2024). Association between western dietary patterns, typical food groups, and behavioral health disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Nutrients, 16(1), https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16010125
6. Kaiser, T., Kloidt, J., Mata, J. & Hertwig, R (2025). A meta-meta-analysis of behavior change interventions: two tales of behavior change [Preprint]. Available at SSRN: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5251012
7. Gronow, J., & Holm, L. (Eds.) (2019). Everyday Eating in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden: A Comparative Study of Meal Patterns 1997-2012. Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/everyday-eating-in-denmark-finlandnorway-and-sweden-9781350080485/

This blog was written by Leonie Tuxhorn (Radboud University) for RAD-blog, the blog about smoking, alcohol, drugs, and diet.