What Influences the Eating Habits of the American People?

There are social and psychological factors that influence people's individual food habits. Social factors can include family and peer pressure. Psychological factors can include depression. Social factors can be see greatly in teenagers. Some girls won't eat in front of boys they like, for fear of the boy thinking she eats too much. They also tend to eat what their friends eat, but they are also psychologically influenced to. This influence comes from the magazines they read and the pictures of all the skinny models, which affects adult women too. Adults can be affected by their families food habits too. Especially when it comes to social gathering, even with peers. You feel you need to eat, whether it is healthy or not, to fit in and make your host or hostess happy.

Families influence your choice in foods from the moment you are old enough to eat solid foods. When you are raised eating something, even if they are bad for you, it tends to be hard to break the habit. And when you live in a family that gets together often you can find that it is not polite to not stuff your face. You can learn to avoid any issues by making wise choices at the buffet and sticking to lots of fruits and vegetables. Also, if you live with someone, whether friend or family, that eats in an unhealthy way it can sometimes be hard to stay away from those bad foods. But if you are serious about eating right you can manage to come up with healthier alternatives to what they are eating. Just don't let their poor habits affect you wanting to better yourself!

There are factors that can influence the acceptance of food misinformation among vulnerable groups, like the elderly, young people and poor people who may not have the availability to learn more about nutrition. Some of these influences are the writing on the wall, so to speak. When a box has big lettering an uninformed person may pick out those big letter and take them to heart, without reading the fine print. These words can include "weight loss" and even "heart health". It is important to teach every generation and every class that reading food labels is one of the best was to find healthy foods.