How social isolation affects what and how we eat.
What the evidence says
- Loneliness and social isolation are consistently associated with harmful eating behaviors[1]
- These include lower diet quality, reduced fruit/vegetable intake[1]
- The relationship appears across multiple study designs (qualitative and quantitative)[1]
- Loneliness is associated with eating disorder symptoms across the reviewed studies; the review describes it as contributing to and fuelling them, which is causal language on observational data, and the direction is not established[1]
- Social connection may be protective against disordered eating patterns[1]