Social and philosophical factors really really go hand and hand. Social factors mainly pertain to our culture or traditions. It can also include social functions like birthday parties, company parties, etc... An example of a social factor and culture is my father is Mexican from Mexico and in our household we ate Mexican food. My mother cooked with a lot of lard, as that is what creates the amazing flavors in Mexican food. Lard however is extremely bad for you. My wife grew up in Hawaii and you would think that eating fish for most of your meals would be a great food choice and it is however a lot of Hawaiian food is high in fat and calories. Peer pressure can be another situation where you are making the wrong food choices. When you are pressured to go out many times you will eat poorly or drink excessively. Another social factor to food choices is money. Struggling to pay bills leaves no room for buying good food at times. Many families or individuals survive eating ramin which is horrible for you. But its cheap and sometimes you have to do what you have to do. One major philosophical factor in food choices I belive is advertising. When you turn on th television there are so many commercials that are advertising food that is not the best. The only way to change these social and philosophical factors is by educating people to eat properly.
Pyschological factors really depends on a person and how they are feeling. If you have had a long hard day at work chances are you do not want to come home and slave in the kitchen to make a nutritious meal. Being a personal trainer I train many people who are emotional eaters. For instance when people suffer a breakup it is an emotional strain that leads many people to eat. They will eat things like potato chips, ice cream, etc to comfort themselves. Many pepole eat because they are bored which is definitely a bad time to eat. Bing eating is another pyschological factor is food choices. Example is my wife and her struggles with food. She grew up in Hawaii and was allowed to eat anything and everything. She was also made to stay at the table to finish everything that was on her plate. She is the type of person that bings eats and then she will turn around and eat healthy and workout and then bing eat. It is like she is either all about eating food that is not so good for her or she is all about eating healthy and working out. There is no in between and it is something that she struggles with on a daily basis. We are working on education and making the right choices without feelind deprived. The video below explains the cycle of emotional eating and the things that can trigger emotional eating:
Physical factors such as being too thin, being obese, etc can definitely drive our food choices. An overweight person chooses to eat poorly either because that is all he or she knows or its comforting to them. A person that is too thin or is starving themselves will maybe eat an apple and is full. An obese person may eat twice the amount they are supposed to because they do not feel full. Many times when we choose to eat poorly we eat more than we should to get that feeling of satisfaction.
These factors are just the tip of the iceberg. But they are very important factors in how we choose our foods. We need to reprogram our brains for example when you have a stressful day at work instead of going out to eat food you would not normally eat go for a walk or run or go to the gym for even just a half an hour. It will help relieve stress and will help you to become healthier.
Here is an awesome movie to watch about food choices. It is very imformative and intersting:
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