The concept of nutrition has changed exponentially in recent decades to include a range of challenges that were not foreseen. The strength of this movement is based on the understanding of (1) the complexity with which people face their nutritional challenges; and (2) the interconnection between food systems and overlapping health risks associated with malnutrition, obesity, and climate change.~Maintaining an adequate weight, a healthy and sustainable diet pattern are complex well-established challenges. However, current nutritional approaches to lose weight, based on functional experiences, often fail to promote long-term adherence to dietary recommendations and maintaining lost weight.~The ambiguity and complexity that involves an interactional nutrition, based on the experiences involved in how people act at the individual level and their relationships with the environment and dynamic systems, brings up the challenge of designing meaningful learning experiences to promote a change of culture and positive impact.~Current social changes demand the search for novel nutritional approaches based on methodologies that result in meaningful experiences. We need new ways to build diets that balance the needs of individuals and society as a whole, new ideas that address global challenges, new strategies that result in differences that matter, and a sense of purpose that includes everyone involved.~With that in mind, Nutrition Thinking® arises as a nutritional approach based on the values and methodologies of Design Thinking, an abstraction of a mental model for addressing complex problems and conducting projects based on empathy, collaboration, and experimentation. Therefore, Nutrition Thinking® represents a new nutrition learning matrix based on experience for the co-creation of authentic and sustainable diets.
The purpose of this study is to scientifically validate Nutrition Thinking®, a novel nutritional approach based on the values and methodologies of Design Thinking.