The oft-repeated claim that people make about 200 food decisions a day is being questioned by a 2025 Max Planck reanalysis. The original study surveyed 154 participants and recorded an average of 14.4 decisions when asked holistically, but totaled 226.7 after breaking the question into parts. Researchers say this discrepancy likely reflects the subadditivity effect—a measurement bias that inflates estimates when questions are partitioned—and warn that such simplified metrics can distort public understanding and undermine self-efficacy.
The '200 Food Decisions a Day' Number May Be a Measurement Illusion, New Max Planck Study Finds
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For almost two decades, a catchy statistic has circulated across health and wellness coverage: people make roughly 200 food-related decisions every day. A 2025 reanalysis by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development suggests that this figure may be the product of measurement—and not a window into mindless eating.
How the Number Was Created
The original study asked 154 participants to estimate how often they made food-related decisions. When asked as a single, broad question, participants' responses averaged about 14.4 decisions per day. But when the same researchers broke that broad question into several subquestions — for example, about when they ate, what they ate, how much they ate, where they ate, and with whom — and then summed those answers, the total rose to an average of 226.7 decisions per day. That larger number has since been widely reported as proof of routine, unconscious eating.
Subadditivity: A Measurement Explanation
Maria Almudena Claassen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Adaptive Rationality, and her colleagues argue that the dramatic gap reflects the well-documented subadditivity effect. This cognitive bias causes people to give higher aggregate estimates when a broad question is partitioned into smaller components. In short, splitting a question can inflate totals without revealing any hidden or automatic mental processes behind eating.
“This number paints a distorted picture of how people make decisions about their food intake and how much control they have over it,” Claassen said in a statement, noting that simplified, attention-grabbing metrics can harm people's sense of self-efficacy.
Why It Matters
The Max Planck team cautions that repeating decontextualized statistics can mislead researchers, clinicians, and the public. Rather than fixating on a single tally, they recommend that studies of eating behavior include richer contextual detail: what is eaten, portion sizes, foods avoided, timing, and the social and emotional setting in which choices occur. They emphasize that the most consequential food decisions are those tied to personal goals—such as health, sustainability, or cultural priorities—not an isolated headline number.
Ralph Hertwig, director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, summed up the recommendation: “To get a better understanding of eating behavior, we need to get a better grasp of how exactly decisions are made and what influences them.”
The institute's reanalysis does not deny that many food-related choices happen daily; it simply questions whether the commonly cited ~200 figure is an accurate or useful summary. By calling attention to the role of subadditivity and measurement design, the authors aim to steer research toward more nuanced, context-rich approaches.
Source: Reanalysis published in the journal Appetite; coverage originally reported by Food & Wine.
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