Where People Live Shapes How They Talk About Food, Study Shows

Food has been a topic of conversation for centuries, and now new research from The University of Texas at Austin shows that how we specifically talk about food plays a role in our health. Scientists have found that people in healthier cities talk differently about food — that healthy cities (e.g. Austin, San Diego, Boston) referenced locations, such as grocery stores or farmers’ markets, and used more complex language to describe a variety of cuisines more so than people in unhealthy cities (e.g. Houston, San Antonio, Columbus). In other words, the way people conceptualize and talk about food is related to where they live and the type of lifestyle afforded to them. When describing rich foods, such as dessert and meat, healthy cities used more positive words while unhealthy cities used negative words, indicating that people in healthier cities may be more “aware of” their dessert intake than those in unhealthy cities, researchers speculated.