UC Berkeley

Abstract. Achieving certain population dietary patterns continues to be a central target of health promotion. To achieve these goals we face theoretical and practical challenges. We try to address the theoretical challenges by extending the Health Promotion Framework with microeconomic and behavioral economics principles. From this point of view, an individual’s food habits and choices are influenced not only by his/her psychological traits and preferences but also by the information, beliefs and constrains of that particular individual and event. By decomposing dietary patterns into a series of discrete behaviors, it is possible to use a microeconomics approach to influence/describe people’s dietary behaviors. We portray and example regarding beverage choice, showing an explanation of why typical nutritional advice have little impact on people-s behavior and proposing a different approach that is more likely to succeed.