A taste for tastes?The spread of food choices & health behaviors in networks

描述（由申请人提供）：能不能说：“你的朋友吃什么，你就是什么？”本研究的主要目的是：(a)描述20年来有限人口的食物选择模式；(b)长期统计评估社会地位与食物选择之间的关系；(c)评估味觉偏好，特别是食物选择模式，可能通过社会关系在该人群中传播的程度。虽然人们普遍认为我们吃的东西会影响我们的健康，但现有的研究试图明确饮食行为和健康结果之间的因果关系，但在很大程度上忽视了个人网络之间社会联系的作用。我们特定的食物消费模式在多大程度上取决于与我们有直接（或间接）联系的人的口味偏好？这项研究有可能通过综合20年来健康结果、社会关系和饮食行为的数据来帮助解释健康状况的变化。关于味觉传递和社会联系强度的可证伪假设是通过对味觉偏好、社会网络、不平等以及饮食、营养和疾病的生物学理论的社会学研究得出的见解而产生的。据推测，食物选择的模式可以通过个人之间的社会关系传播，并影响健康。这些证据将指向健康的一个新的、未被记录的社会组成部分。提出了三阶段分析方法。在第一阶段，使用聚类分析和个人在“健康饮食”指数上的得分来描述个人的饮食模式和他们随时间改变饮食的程度。在第二阶段，我使用个人的饮食模式、健康饮食指数、社会经济地位变量和来自社会网络关系的数据作为一系列交叉滞后面板模型的预测变量，旨在统计评估对个人饮食的影响。在第三阶段，我使用社会网络方法和可视化技术来建立之前的纵向模型，并统计评估饮食模式随时间扩散的程度和速度。随着人们对肥胖和心血管疾病等与食物口味高度相关的健康状况的日益关注，该项目具有重要的公共卫生意义。更好地了解这些健康状况背后的社会机制，可以指出更有效的行为干预措施，以解决可改变的疾病风险因素。总而言之，这项研究有可能通过揭示社会规范在特定人群中随时间变化的机制，使公众更加批判性地思考，不仅仅是吃什么，还有如何吃。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Can it be said that: "you are what your friends eat?" The primary objectives of this research are to: (a) describe patterns of food choice in a bounded population over 20 years; (b) statistically assess relationships between social status and food choice over time; (c) to evaluate the extent to which taste preferences, specifically patterns of food choice, might be observed to spread through this population via social ties. While it is commonly accepted that what we eat affects our well-being, existing research that seeks to specify causal relationships between eating behaviors and health outcomes has largely ignored the role of social connections between networks of individuals. To what extent do our specific food consumption patterns depend on the taste preferences of people to whom we are directly (or indirectly) connected? This research has the potential to help explain variation in health status by allowing for synthesis of data on health outcomes, social ties, and eating behaviors over a 20-year period. Falsifiable hypotheses concerning taste transmission and strength of social ties are generated by insights drawn from sociological research of taste preferences, social networks, inequality, and biological theories of diet, nutrition, and disease. It is hypothesized that patterns of food choice can diffuse through social ties between individuals and influence health. Such evidence would point to a novel, undocumented social component of health. A three-stage analysis is proposed. In the first stage, cluster analysis and individuals' scoring on an index of "healthy eating" are used to describe individuals' eating patterns and the degree to which they change diet over time. In the second stage, 1 use individuals' diet patterns, healthy eating index, SES variables, and data from social network ties over time as predictor variables in a series of cross-lagged panel models designed to statistically assess effects on individuals' diets. In the third stage, I use social network methods and visualization techniques to build on the prior longitudinal models, and to statistically assess the extent and speed of diffusion of diet patterns over time. With growing concern for health conditions such as obesity and cardiovascular disease that are highly correlated with our tastes in food, this project has important public health implications. A better understanding of the social mechanisms that underlie these health conditions can point to more effective behavioral interventions to address modifiable risk factors for disease. In sum, this research has the potential to make the public think more critically about not just what, but how, it eats, by uncovering mechanisms by which social norms can change in a given population over time.