Exploring the barriers and facilitators for following a sustainable diet: A holistic and contextual scoping review

Abstract

Changing current dietary patterns to more sustainable ones is paramount to decrease the pressure food systems are putting onto the planet and people’s health and wellbeing. However, modifying consumers’ behaviour is extremely challenging since multiple factors of variable nature (i.e., personal, socioeconomic, cultural, external…) influence food choices. For this reason, we aim to identify consumers’ barriers and facilitators for following a sustainable and healthy diet, and explore how these are perceived among people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. To do so, we conducted a scoping review of the literature with a consultation phase with citizens from Barcelona with different socioeconomic backgrounds. Results revealed one hundred intricate factors that influence people food behaviour, which were grouped into internal, and external factors. Although the literature generally agreed on the direction of influence from the identified factors, the consultation phase generated substantial disagreements given the participants’ diverse perspectives and motivations. However, some limiting factors were commonly mentioned across groups which corresponded to feelings of distrust towards the food industry, lack of time, disgust towards specific foods, and the high cost of foods. Differences across socioeconomic groups were not observed except for the latter. All participants agreed that cost acted as a barrier, although participants from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were more capable to find arguments to overcome the price barrier. Results are necessary to acknowledge the particularities embedded in each person and the need to design context-based interventions to effectively overcome people’s barriers and enhance their facilitators.