Almudena Claassen: Beyond the 200 Food Decisions Myth—Observing Behavior to Improve How We Eat

Show Notes for Episode #6 of Unraveling Behavior

In this episode, Almudena Claassen challenges the widely cited claim that people make over 200 mindless food decisions every day. She highlights the methodological limitations of the ‘200 decisions’ estimate and discusses how such figures can shape perceptions of eating behavior. Instead of relying on vague numbers, Almudena advocates for measuring food decisions in concrete situations. She highlights the importance of defining the context (for example, a family meal), the specific decision being tracked (such as pieces of vegetables eaten), and who is actually making the decision (the person eating versus the person buying the groceries). By observing decisions as they happen, using tools like video recordings of family meals, grocery receipts, or digital trackers, researchers can get a more accurate picture of how people eat and why. The conversation also covers practical ways to improve children’s eating habits. Almudena shares research-backed tips such as making meals last longer, creating a positive and relaxed mealtime environment, and making healthier foods convenient to eat. This episode is perfect for anyone curious about the science behind food decisions and offers practical strategies to improve children’s nutrition in everyday life.

Watch the interview on YouTube (curated subtitles: English, Deutsch). Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other players, or subscribe via our RSS feed.

Links

• Almudena Claassen’s website
• Preprint of the article discussed in this episode: Claassen, Mata, & Hertwig (2025)
• Other articles mentioned: Dallacker, Hertwig, & Mata (2019); Dallacker, Knobl, Hertwig, & Mata (2023); Knobl, Dallacker, Hertwig, & Mata (2022); Wansink & Sobal (2007)
• Press release: The myth of 200 daily food decisions

Timestamps

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:10 Origin of the “200 food decisions a day” myth
• 05:30 Why the “200 decisions” estimate is misleading
• 08:58 Importance of debunking the myth
• 11:50 Defining food decisions beyond simply finding a better number
• 13:48 Almudena’s proposed research approach
• 15:43 Using objective methods to measure decisions
• 16:56 Study example: family meals and healthy eating
• 19:46 Technology and methods for observing food behavior
• 22:21 Practical advice for parents on healthy eating
• 27:09 Emphasizing context over daily decision counts

Transcript (edited)

Sofia Morais: Hi, Almudena. Thanks for being here. It's great to have you.

Almudena Claassen: Hi, Sofia. Thanks for inviting me. It’s great to be here.

Sofia Morais: Let’s start with the popular claim that people make over 200 food decisions a day, often without realizing it. Where does that number come from?

Almudena Claassen: That number comes from a 2007 study by Brian Wansink and Jeffery Sobal, who at the time worked at Cornell University. They wanted to find out how many food and beverage decisions people make in a day. They asked university students two questions. Let me ask you the same ones they asked in the study. The first was: “Sofia, can you estimate how many food and beverage decisions you make in a day, including meals, snacks, and drinks?”

Sofia Morais: Okay, let’s say lunch—I choose a main dish, maybe decide if I’ll have dessert, usually fruit. Then maybe coffee or tea afterward. Dinner would be similar, so that’s already about six. For breakfast, I have yogurt with cereal, plus coffee—that’s more of a habit. Then there are snacks—fruit, nuts, maybe chocolate. So maybe four there. Add in a few cups of tea—let’s say I make around 15 food decisions a day.

Almudena Claassen: That seems sensible—and close to what the researchers found. On average, people estimated 14 decisions. But then came the second question: “Now estimate how many decisions you make about what you eat, how much, where, when, and with whom—for a typical meal, snack, and drink on a typical day.”

Sofia Morais: Okay, let’s break that down for a typical meal. You mentioned “when”—I decide when to start cooking, when it's done, when to serve, how much to serve. Maybe I save some for later. Then I decide when to start eating and when to stop. And the ingredients—do those count? I use a lot of vegetables, so ten or more ingredients might go into one dish. That’s hard to count. But clearly more than just 15.

Almudena Claassen: I think it was easier for the participants because they could write down how many decisions they made for each component. The researchers then multiplied those estimates by the number of meals, snacks, and beverages the participants reported consuming on a typical day. Altogether, the average came out to 226. Comparing that to the original 14, they concluded that 212 decisions are mindless—decisions people make without even noticing.

Sofia Morais: That’s a lot. One mindless decision every five minutes or so.

Almudena Claassen: It does sound like a lot, but they’re likely clustered around certain times—when preparing or eating meals, or when shopping, for example.

Sofia Morais: You recently published a paper with Jutta Mata and Ralph Hertwig where you argue that this “200 decisions” estimate is essentially meaningless. Why?

Almudena Claassen: We argue it’s meaningless because of how it was measured—through those two questions. The way you ask a question—broadly or in detail—affects how often people think something happens. If you break one event into specific parts, people are more likely to judge it as happening more frequently. This is known as the subadditivity effect, a well-established cognitive bias.

Sofia Morais: When you give people detailed prompts, it helps them recall.

Almudena Claassen: That’s right. In a general question, you might think, “What did I eat?” But if I ask about timing, setting, quantity, you remember more and count more. That inflates the estimate, but it doesn’t mean the decisions were mindless—it just means you didn’t consider them as decisions when answering the broad question.

Sofia Morais: Yeah, and I felt that too—when you gave me the more detailed question, I had a better idea of what you considered a decision. Whereas with the broad one, I wasn’t sure what counted.

Almudena Claassen: But nevertheless you still asked whether each ingredient counted. This was not so clearly defined for participants either. The original study didn’t clearly define what qualifies as a decision. So the results are not just inflated due to subadditivity, but also because the definitions were arbitrary.

Sofia Morais: Brian Wansink—the lead author—was later found by Cornell University to have committed academic misconduct, including misreporting results. But you’re not suggesting this specific study was intentionally deceptive?

Almudena Claassen: No, not at all. Although many of his papers were retracted, this one wasn’t. We’re not claiming it was fraudulent. Our point is that the method used can’t accurately tell us how many mindless decisions people make. It’s not intentional deception, just a flawed and misleading method.

Sofia Morais: And why is it important for people to know this?

Almudena Claassen: One reason is that this number really took off—it’s often mentioned in the media, and even laypeople know about it. It’s frequently cited in academic papers, with almost 500 citations. But no one has ever questioned where this number actually comes from or tried to replicate it to verify if it’s reliable. Usually, you need multiple studies to build solid evidence, but that has never happened here.

Sofia Morais: So it’s basically a one-time finding?

Almudena Claassen: Exactly. It’s just a one-time finding, yet people keep reporting it.

Sofia Morais: It’s such a catchy number!

Almudena Claassen: It really is. It sounds great. But what’s important is people understand that this figure is based on flawed methodology. If people believe they make that many mindless decisions every day, they might feel there’s no point trying to improve their diet or food choices because most decisions happen unconsciously. There’s only 14 or so conscious decisions that they could actually improve.

Sofia Morais: It definitely makes you feel like you lack control.

lmudena Claassen: Yeah, and we see this with other things too—like the idea that you have to take 10,000 steps a day to be healthy. That number is completely arbitrary, not based on solid science. Research actually shows that about half that amount is enough to stay healthy.

Sofia Morais: And all those fitness trackers and watches have that 10,000-step goal, right? People really try to hit that number every day.

Almudena Claassen: Exactly. People work hard to reach it, but if the goal is set too high, it can end up being demotivating.

Sofia Morais: Do you think these kinds of findings also influence policymakers?

Almudena Claassen: Absolutely. If policymakers believe people make mostly mindless decisions, they may focus on interventions that assume people can’t be educated or taught to make better choices. They might overlook strategies aimed at improving conscious decisions. If people are more in control than assumed, those interventions could miss the mark.

Sofia Morais: So the “200 decisions” estimate isn’t really all that useful. What’s next then? Should we just try to find a more accurate number, or is there a deeper question we should be focusing on?

Almudena Claassen: It’s definitely tempting to just come up with a better, more accurate number—and we were tempted to do that ourselves. But as we started thinking about how to approach this, we realized one of the biggest problems is that we don’t even have a clear definition of what counts as a food decision. When does it start? When does it end? For example, is a habit a decision? Can a decision be unconscious or automatic?

Think about something as simple as eating a sandwich. That might seem like one decision, but really, it breaks down into many smaller ones. You might want a sandwich because you’re hungry or maybe because you’re bored. You can make it yourself or buy it somewhere. You decide what kind of bread, which spreads, cheese, ham, or salad to add. Then there’s where you eat it—at your desk, walking in the park, or with someone else. You might log it into a calorie tracker and then decide, “Okay, since I had a sandwich with a lot of mayonnaise, I can’t have a cookie as a snack.”

Sofia Morais: There are so many layers that could count as decisions.

Almudena Claassen: Exactly. And without a clear definition of what counts as a decision, you can come up with any number—it’s completely arbitrary.

Sofia Morais: Right, it seems like you can always break it down further and further. That’s kind of what happened in the original study, isn’t it?

Almudena Claassen: Exactly. And if we tried to repeat it today, whatever level we choose to define as a "decision" would still produce an arbitrary number.

Sofia Morais: How do you think researchers can begin to approach this problem?

Almudena Claassen: One approach we think could work is to define food decisions within a specific moment or context. For example, a school lunch, a family meal at home, or a particular grocery shopping trip. You need to clearly decide what counts as a decision in that setting.

So let’s say you're interested in what people snack on while watching TV. You then have to define the level of decision that matters for your study. Do you want to know how many calories they consumed from snacks? Or do you want to track each time someone reaches for another crisp from the bag? You have to ask: what’s the unit of measurement that’s meaningful for your research question—or for helping people change their behavior?

There are also two other key dimensions. One is the time frame—you need to define how long you're observing. Are you measuring behavior over a year, a week, or just a single snacking episode? The second is who is making the decision. Is your focus the individual eating the crisps? Or is it the person in the household who bought the crisps in the first place?

Thinking about this in terms of what kind of intervention you want to design can help. Do you want to help someone resist the next crisp, or do you want to help make the home food environment healthier overall? That would shift the focus to the person doing the shopping.

Only when you clearly define these elements—the context, the unit of measurement, the time frame, and the decision-maker—can you meaningfully talk about what a "food decision" really is in your study.

And then there's the question of how to measure decisions. It's better to use objective methods, like direct observation or collecting grocery receipts, rather than relying on self-reports. In the Wansink and Sobal study, they simply asked people to estimate how many food decisions they made, which leads to all sorts of biases—people may forget or not want to admit what they ate.

This approach might not give you a single, flashy estimate, but—

Sofia Morais: Right, it gives you a local estimate for that specific context and moment.

Almudena Claassen: Exactly. It's more precise and gives you insight into the actual processes or the quality of the decisions being made. That allows for more targeted, effective interventions. Just knowing that there are “200 decisions” a day doesn’t tell you which ones matter or where to intervene.

Sofia Morais: You mentioned a study by Mattea Dallacker as a good example of your approach. Could you explain what that study involved?

Almudena Claassen: Sure. In this study, Mattea Dallacker and her colleagues invited families—usually a caregiver and a child—to come eat a meal in a lab setting. Each family had two meals. One meal lasted as long as their typical family dinner at home, while the other was extended by 50%, which averaged out to about ten extra minutes. The order of the meals was randomized: some families had the short meal first, others had the longer one first, with a gap of one to three weeks between them.

The children, who were between six and eleven years old, were served a typical German dinner: bread, cold cuts, desserts like cookies and pudding, along with cut fruits and vegetables. Drinks like water and soft drinks were also available. The researchers measured exactly how much each child ate, and the entire meal was video recorded, which gave them an objective view of the eating behavior.

What they found was interesting—during the longer meal, children ate more fruits and vegetables, but they didn’t consume more unhealthy foods like cookies or pudding, or even more bread. The explanation the researchers gave is that fruits and vegetables were already cut into bite-sized pieces, making them easy to grab and eat—perhaps easier than preparing another sandwich. But there might also be other explanations. A longer mealtime could create a more relaxed environment, and we know that a more pleasant atmosphere often encourages healthier eating in children.

Sofia Morais: And based on your approach, what other methods do you think could be useful for objectively measuring food decisions?

Almudena Claassen: One example would be collecting grocery receipts, which give a more objective record of what a family buys, rather than just asking them to recall it. You could also study behavior in real online shopping environments—observe what people add to their carts, for instance.

Observation is powerful—whether in the lab through video recording or even in the home. You could ask people to record meals or monitor other cues in the environment. For example, how often someone opens the fridge, what they take out, or whether they just look inside and walk away.

Today, we have access to a range of wearable and digital tools. GPS data can show how close someone is to a fast-food outlet. Smartwatches can track how often you bring a fork or spoon to your mouth. There are even in-ear devices that detect chewing.

That said, while these tools give us rich and objective data, qualitative methods also have value—especially in cultural contexts different from ours. In some cultures, food decisions are much more social or ritualized. In those cases, in-depth interviews might be a better way to understand what's really happening before applying high-tech measurement tools.

Sofia Morais: So for me, one of the big takeaways from your paper is that instead of relying on a “magic number” like 200 food decisions a day, we should focus more on the context—understanding when and how these decisions are made. And for the parents watching us, what can they do to help their kids eat more healthily at home—based on the science?

Almudena Claassen:  I can share a few strategies that are grounded in research, mostly from work by Mattea Dallacker and colleagues—and also Vanessa Knobl and myself.

First, as we saw in the study, simply extending the duration of meals can lead to kids eating more fruits and vegetables.

Second, creating a positive atmosphere helps. That means avoiding overly strict rules, encouraging pleasant conversation during meals, and keeping the tone light and supportive.

Third, removing distractions like smartphones or TVs during meals is important. When people are distracted, they tend to eat more and make less healthy choices. Plus, removing screens makes the meal more social and enjoyable.

Some additional strategies—though they need more research in real-world settings—include involving children in food preparation. When kids help make the meal, they’re more likely to try and enjoy the food. Also, parents modeling healthy eating—eating fruits and vegetables themselves—can positively influence their kids.

Two simple but powerful ideas that apply to adults and may help with children too:

1. Keep healthy foods visible and accessible—like storing cut fruits or vegetables in see-through containers at the front of the fridge where kids can easily reach them.
2. Prep healthy snacks in advance—because when we’re hungry, we tend to grab whatever’s easiest. If the cucumber is already washed and cut, it might win out over the crisps.

Sofia Morais: These are great contextual interventions. Of course, for any of this to work, the healthy food has to be available in the first place. But I love that one takeaway is simply this: when families spend more time together and have a positive experience around meals, it really can help kids eat more healthily. That’s a powerful insight. Thank you so much, Almudena—it was a real pleasure to have you.

Almudena Claassen: Thank you for having me!