Are foodies also fatties?

Are you adventurous with your food? If so you might call yourself a “foodie” or in psychological terms you might be called a “food neophile”, someone who likes to try new food. With the proliferation of “cooking shows” (albeit that sometimes they are reality/game show hybrids masquerading under the cover of food) on broadcast and internet media, there is certainly encouragement to be a food neophile, but a new study wanted to see whether an excitement about food may actually be bad for you by making you fat and generally unhealthy.

The study involved women from across the United States who were non-vegetarian and ethnically diverse. The women all completed questionnaires on their healthiness, lifestyle and general psychology. To establish if they were adventurous with their food, the women were shown a list of 16 foods and asked if they would be willing to try or eat them more than once. If a subject said yes to nine or more of the foods, then she qualified as a “foodie” or adventurous eater. The 16 foods were kale, seitan, quinoa, seaweed, bean sprouts, beef tongue, eel, quail eggs, rabbit, kimchi, tempeh, venison, polenta, liver, raw oysters and pork belly.

The results showed that being a foodie (adventurous eater) was strongly correlated with a lower BMI than being a non-foodie. Interestingly, however, foodies were no happier with their weight than non-foodies. Nevertheless, foodies were healthier eaters, tended to exercise more, were more likely to cook to connect to their heritage and were more likely to host friends for dinner when compared to non-adventurous eaters.

In terms of personality, the foodies were more willing to try new things in general and they were also found to have higher average salaries. The unadventurous eaters were found to be more influenced by celebrity endorsements of food, to care about nice packaging, to want food to be easily prepared and to care about new food being inexpensive.

A fascinating thought thrown out by the researchers as the reason for these findings is that in our evolution humans had to seek out a variety of foods in order to ensure that a variety of macronutrients were consumed. That, of course, is before the wide availability in the affluent modern world. So those who were more adventurous with food may also in some deeply evolutionary sense have been more healthy.

Whatever the reason though, in light of all of this, it certainly seems that an interest in food is certainly not linked to weight gain or an unhealthy life. So encouraging people to become interested in food experimentation is a healthy endeavour. Given the psychological profile of non-adventurous eaters the researchers suggest that brighter packaging for healthier foods may help fight the obesity crisis. The problem with that is that the best foods are the least packaged. Given the general findings here maybe what we really need is Scarlett Johansson to start advocating kale and kimchi. Step up Scarlett (and Chris Pratt and others of your ilk)…the world needs you.