Moralities in food and health research
Abstract
Society has imposed strict rules about what constitutes a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ food and ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ eating behaviour at least since antiquity. Today, the moral discourse of what we should and should not eat is perhaps stronger than ever, and it informs consumers, researchers and policy-makers about what we all should consume, research and regulate. We propose four types of moralities, underlying sets of moral assumptions, that orient the contemporary discourses of food and health: the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nature of food items, the virtue of self-control and moderation, the management of body size and the actions of market agents. We demonstrate how these moralities influence consumer behaviour as well as transformative research of food and health and develop a critical discussion of the impact of the underlying morality in each domain. We conclude by providing a few guidelines for changes in research questions, designs and methodologies for future research and call for a general reflection on the consequences of the uncovered moralities in research on food and health towards an inclusive view of food well-being.
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Health consciousness positively impacts moral norms regarding healthy eating.
“Multiple studies have demonstrated that health consciousness significantly influences the development of moral norms regarding food choices, as consumers categorize foods not just by their health benefits, but through an ethical lens of “good” versus “bad” choices [49,82].”
From Psychological Determinants of Healthy Food Purchase Intention: An Integrative Model Based on Health Consciousness (2025) · cites this paper as [49]
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Escobar-Farfán, M., García-Salirrosas, E. E., Guerra-Velásquez, M., Veas-González, I., Gómez-Bayona, L., & Gallardo-Canales, R. (2025) · Nutrients · doi:10.3390/nu17071140 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
“…behavioral control in fl uence these intentions [50,66,67], while additional constructs such as self-iden-tity and moral norms complement and enrich this understanding These variables are not isolated, but form an integrated influence system that guides healthy food consumption decisions [31,39,49].”
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- Authors
- Askegaard, S., Ordabayeva, N., Chandon, P., Cheung, T., Chytkova, Z., Cornil, Y., Corus, C., Edell, J. A., Mathras, D., Junghans, A. F., Kristensen, D. B., Mikkonen, I., Miller, E. G., Sayarh, N., & Werle, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern Denmark (DK)
- Boston College (US)
- INSEAD (FR)
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Pace University (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Arizona State University (US)
- Aalto University (FI)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Grenoble Ecole de Management (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Askegaard, Søren
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Marketing Management
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-11-07
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 17-18
- Pages
- 1800-1832
- ISSN
- 0267-257X (ISSN-L)
- 1472-1376
- OpenAlex
- W2116913601
- Cited by
- 93
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 5.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Marketing Management (publishedVersion)
- University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Consumer Attitudes and Food Labeling
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Food, Nutrition, and Cultural Practices
- Keywords
- morality, moral discourse, self-control, moderation, market agents, consumer behavior, transformative research, food well-being, food regulation, eating behaviour
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