PhD Sustainable and healthy eating behavior

A curious, ambitious and highly motivated PhD candidate for the NWO funded project 'Tipping the balance in dietary change: behavioural aftereffects of designing healthy and sustainable food environments' . This interdisciplinary project aims to co-create healthier and more sustainable food environments employing research-through-design approaches and unravel the complex network of aftereffects together with WUR, Waag, Reinwardt Academy Amsterdam University of Arts, BeBright, RIVM, municipality Utrecht, Municipality Amersfoort and Province Utrecht.

Shifting food consumption patterns towards plant-based diets can substantially promote personal, public and planetary health. Today's food environment where unhealthy foods are abundantly available contributed to unhealthy and non-sustainable dietary patterns. Consequently, changes in the food environment have been proposed to foster a transition in consumption. However, the interplay between changes in the food environment and behavioral responses to such system changes is currently not well understood.

The appointed candidate will dive specifically into behavioral aftereffects of individual food-decisions. Most research addressing food choice in specific settings addresses single responses to single exposures to food cues, yet do not take into account that these single choices may also affect individual behavior at other occasions and at other settings. For instance, a worksite cafeteria that nudges employees towards plant-based meals may sell more of these meals and the nudge will be deemed effective. Yet, it remains unknown what the aftereffects of that nudge are when individuals make food decisions at a later moment in time or at another place. This project aims to gain insight into the intra-individual variation in healthy and sustainable food decisions by studying the interrelatedness of food consumption choices within individuals across settings and time. Hereto behavioral conceptual experiments in online and lab settings may be conducted alongside (location-based and time-based) ecological momentary assessments in the real world.