Unhealthy food preferences: A psychological consequence of poverty?

Drawing on the literature on the psychological consequences of poverty, this paper examines whether stress explains poor people's stronger preferences for unhealthy food and whether self‐affirmation mitigates stress and reduces unhealthy food preferences. Through a quasiexperimental field study of patrons of a community kitchen, we show that poor people (vs. controls) prefer more unhealthy food and, more importantly, that chronic stress mediates the relationship between poverty and unhealthy food preferences. A second quasiexperimental study of poor residents of a home for homeless people replicates this effect for actual unhealthy food choices. A final online study reveals that a social‐psychological self‐affirmation intervention mitigates poor people's experienced stress, which in turn helps reduce unhealthy food preferences. The discussion focuses on how managing stress through timely interventions such as self‐affirmation can improve poor people's unhealthy food preferences. Finally, policy implications are discussed.