Do MY FOOD CHOICES affect anyone else?

The reason I named my facebook page Our Food Karma is because I wanted to highlight the idea that we are all in it together and our own food choices have a massive influence on the food choices of others and I’ll explain why…!

Family influences:

If you have one parent who is obese you have a 50% chance of becoming obese as an adult and if both your parents are obese then your obesity risk goes up to 80%! I argue that the risk is more down to nurture rather than nature! Our diets in adulthood are largely influenced on what food we were given as a child. Although easily mistaken, love is not providing sugary foods to settle children. If you are overweight as a child you are likely going to be overweight as an adult, unless you change your diet dramatically later on in life.


Parents/caregivers who eat unhealthily will undoubtedly impart at least some of these unhealthy eating behaviours to their children. Also your diet prior to and during pregnancy along with your weight can have long lasting effects on your child’s health even in adulthood!! Women who enter into pregnancy overweight increase their own risk of developing gestational diabetes and increase the likelihood of their child developing type 2 diabetes later in life!

So in order to ensure your kids are healthy and less likely to become overweight, develop type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease as adults it is worth reassessing mealtimes and making nutrition a priority.


Whether we realise it or not our food choices affect the food choices of our friends. For example, when you are meeting up with friends and someone suggests a dessert, do you say

  1. “yes, that’s a great idea, I was eyeing up the chocolate éclair” OR
  2. “I’m good, the dinner was enough for me!”

When  you visit friends do you bring cakes and biscuits or do you bring a healthy dip? When you go to the cinema do you convince your friend to get popcorn and chocolate too so you can feel better about treating yourself? Do you bring sweets for your friend’s children or instead buy them a colouring book, bracelet, or DVD? What I’m discussing here is what you do most of time; sometimes you might bring ice-cream to cheer yourself or a friend up, or maybe you have that dessert just because you feel like it, or maybe you do bring sweets over for a friend’s child but as long as your habit (what you do around 80% of the time) has a positive impact overall then you will be doing okay! Our friends are often the most influential people in our life! It pays to be around healthy friends..!!


Every house I’ve lived in (and I’ve lived in a lot), I’ve learnt or picked up some cooking tips from a housemate. You notice what your housemates buy in their grocery shopping and you see and smell the end results. This affects you whether you know it or not! However, when your housemate prefers to order a pizza then this can make you a bit more relaxed and perhaps not as stringent with your home cooking (…but at least there’s no one taking over the cooker!). If we look at things the other way round your housemate may start to become curious about your food and perhaps may start to buy some of those “strange” vegetables you get each week!


Grocery shopping:

The food industry and supermarkets are to blame for all the cheap and easily available unhealthy food. There is enticement and temptation everywhere, as their sole objective is to make money! However, it is ultimately us who swipes our bank cards and pays for our own food shopping. If we did not continue to purchase all those sugary drinks, biscuits, cakes, pastries, and chocolate then there would no longer be a demand for them and suppliers would stock more healthy food (but only if there is a demand!).


This is a photo taken by my friend Elize when she was in Amsterdam. Sometimes a photo can describe a thousand words!! Very ironic!

Eating out:

Similar to grocery shopping above, if we make the individual choice to stop buying takeaways and instead eat at healthy restaurants then the demand for these fast food chains will go down! Fast food restaurants located near schools or near residential areas is associated with an increase in obesity! We can also do our bit at restaurants. Portion sizes in restaurants are often a lot bigger than what you would normally eat at home. There is often the dilemma of not wanting to waste food and to get value for your money. Although you may feel awkward asking the following questions, my advice is to not care as most restaurants are a business and are there for profit but if people keep asking then they will gradually change their menus/options! The following questions can be helpful in making sure you follow a healthy diet while eating out:

  • Are there half portions available?
  • Can I have the dressing on the side?
  • What exactly is in the salad? I find salads can be hit and miss. You can get amazing, tasty and filling salads and on the other hand you can get miserable, tasteless and unfilling salads, and then you wish you ordered those chips that someone else has (and you may even treat yourself to a dessert to feel better after this mishap!).
  • Can I have a larger portion of vegetables instead of the baguette/bread/chips? Or a side salad with the soup instead of white bread (which is commonly provided)?
  • Ask to have what you’re not eating put into a takeaway container. This prevents you from continuing to graze and it means you have another meal/snack for later (sustainability!).


We live in a world that is becoming more and more aware of the link between nutrition and health but unfortunately our awareness is not having enough action. Although it may seem like we can only play a small part; if everyone made one small change to their diet every week we would have a healthy and happy population in no time!

If you would like to read more of my nutrition blogs then please like my facebook page Our Food Karma. For more regular updates and interaction please add me on snapchat with username: sharuuu000 and instagram as ourfoodkarma

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