Food choice, defined as how individuals decide on what to buy and eat, involves the acceptance and rejection of specific foods. Food customisation is becoming more common amongst food retailers, allowing customers to alter their meals to their preferences by removing or adding items. Today, food choice is viewed as more complex, food choices are not just dictated by taste but nutritional quality, allergens, and habits. For example, the framework provided for food customisation (e.g. pizza with toppings or a build you own pizza) and the perceived 'healthiness' of food items (e.g. the pizza toppings) can alter food choice. Psychological reasoning, the process by which humans make decisions by drawing conclusions can play a role in food choice; however, humans can possess a psychological bias leading to illogical decision making. Genetics can too play a role in decision making resulting in predetermined influence on food choice. This research wishes to determine if individual's genetics can affect their food choices by researching psychological biases to food choices.
This project aims to assess if food choice is impacted by loss aversion (LA), and if this differs based on genetic predisposition to LA, in a UK healthy cohort.