Influences on food choice (SACE Stage 2 Nutrition)
“Explain the range of factors that influence food choice, including cultural, social, economic, psychological and environmental influences”
People rarely choose food on nutrition alone. Cultural and religious traditions, family and social settings, cost and availability, marketing, and personal taste and beliefs all shape what people eat. You should be able to explain each group of influences with examples and show how they interact, sometimes pulling food choices away from what the dietary guidelines recommend.
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What this dot point is asking
You need to identify the main factors influencing food choice, explain each with examples, and recognise that several factors usually act together.
Cultural and religious influences
Culture shapes which foods are considered normal, special or unacceptable, and how meals are prepared and shared. Religious rules guide food choice strongly: for example, some faiths avoid pork, others avoid beef, and some require fasting at certain times. Traditional and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander food practices, including the use of native foods (bush foods), are part of cultural identity and connection to Country, and are recognised in the Australian context.
Social influences
Social factors include family habits, peers and the occasion. Children learn eating patterns from family, and people often eat differently with friends, at celebrations or when eating out. Sharing food is central to many social events, so the company can matter as much as the food.
Economic influences
Cost and income strongly affect food choice. Cheaper, energy-dense foods can be more affordable than fresh produce, so lower income can limit access to a healthy diet. Availability also matters: people in remote areas may have less access to fresh, affordable food, an issue tied to food security in Topic 4.
A nutritious diet is not automatically the cheapest option. When healthier foods cost more or are harder to obtain, economic and geographic factors can override good nutrition knowledge, which is why food access is a public health concern.
Psychological and personal influences
Psychological factors include personal taste, appetite, mood and beliefs. People choose familiar flavours, may eat for comfort, and may follow ethical positions such as vegetarianism or concern for animal welfare. Sensory appeal (taste, smell, appearance and texture) is a powerful driver, sometimes outweighing nutrition.
Marketing and the food environment
Marketing and advertising influence choice, especially of discretionary foods, through packaging, branding, pricing deals and placement in stores. The wider food environment, including the availability of takeaway outlets and the convenience of processed foods, nudges choices. Health messages and food labelling also work in the other direction, helping people choose better.
Factors interact
In real life these influences combine. A person may want to follow the dietary guidelines (knowledge) but face a tight budget (economic), a long commute that favours convenience food (environment) and family traditions (cultural). Understanding this interaction explains why simply knowing what is healthy does not guarantee a healthy diet, and why improving population diets needs more than information.
Physiological versus psychological factors
A distinction examiners test directly is between physiological and psychological reasons for a food choice. Physiological factors come from the body: a food allergy or intolerance, a medical condition such as coeliac disease or gout, pregnancy, age, or simple hunger and appetite. These are bodily reasons a person can or cannot eat a food. Psychological factors come from the mind: personal taste, ethical or religious beliefs, mood and comfort eating, disgust at a texture, or anxiety about a food's health effects. The same outcome, for example not eating meat, can have a physiological cause (an allergy) or a psychological cause (animal-welfare beliefs).
When a question asks for one type, naming the wrong category loses the mark even if the example is sensible. A reliable check is to ask whether the reason is about how the body responds (physiological) or how the person thinks or feels (psychological). Keeping this split clear is a quick way to lift marks on this topic.
Step 1: Read the case and list every cue
A case describes a uni student who eats takeaway most nights, skips vegetables because they are expensive, follows a vegetarian diet on ethical grounds, and buys what their flatmates buy. List each detail.
Step 2: Assign each cue to a category
Takeaway most nights is environmental and convenience; vegetables too expensive is economic; vegetarian on ethical grounds is psychological; copying flatmates is social. Tag every cue so none is missed.
Step 3: Show how the factors interact
Note that the economic and environmental factors push towards cheap convenience food, while the psychological (ethical) factor shapes what kind of food, and the social factor reinforces the flatmates' pattern. The factors pull in different directions.
Step 4: Draw the conclusion the question wants
Conclude that the student's diet results from several interacting influences, not nutrition knowledge alone, which is why education by itself would not change it. Naming the category for each cue is the marks-earning move.
- Listing only one factor
- Exam answers should cover several categories (cultural, social, economic, psychological, marketing), not just personal taste.
- Assuming knowledge equals behaviour
- People may know the guidelines yet eat otherwise because of cost, culture or convenience. Influences can override knowledge.
- Ignoring positive influences
- Labelling, health campaigns and cultural traditions can encourage healthy eating, not only undermine it.
- Overlooking the Australian context
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander food practices and remote food access are specific, expected examples in this subject.
In short, food choice is shaped by culture, religion, social settings, cost, availability, psychology, sensory appeal and marketing, which interact and often pull choices away from purely nutritional ideals. Recognising these influences explains real eating behaviour and the limits of nutrition education alone.
Exam-style questions
Questions in the style of SACE Board exam questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer. They are written by ExamExplained unless tagged "Past paper"; the year shows the paper a question is modelled on.
2018 SACE Stage 2-style2 marksMany members of society do not eat meat. Explain one physiological factor that prevents some individuals from eating meat.Show worked answer →
For 2 marks, name a physiological (body-based) factor and explain how it prevents meat consumption.
A clear example is a food allergy or intolerance: some people have an allergic reaction to a protein in meat (for example, a red-meat allergy linked to alpha-gal), causing symptoms such as swelling, hives or digestive upset, so they must avoid it (2 marks).
Other acceptable physiological factors include difficulty digesting meat, gout (where purines in red meat worsen the condition), or a medical condition that requires a low-meat diet. The key is that it is a bodily, not a belief-based, reason.
2018 SACE Stage 2-style2 marksExplain one psychological reason why some individuals do not eat meat.Show worked answer →
For 2 marks, identify a psychological (mind/attitude-based) reason and explain it.
A common psychological reason is ethical or moral concern about animal welfare. Some people feel distress or strong disapproval at the idea of animals being killed for food, so they choose not to eat meat to align their diet with their personal values and beliefs (2 marks).
Other acceptable reasons include disgust at the taste, texture or appearance of meat, or anxiety about its health effects. The distinction from a physiological factor is that this is driven by feelings, attitudes or beliefs rather than the body's function.
Practise this
Sources & how we know this
- Stage 2 Nutrition subject outline (2025 onwards) — SACE Board
- Stage 2 Nutrition: external assessment — SACE Board