Towards a situational taxonomy of comfort foods: A retrospective analysis

The concept of comfort food is heterogeneous and encompasses many different aspects that have been difficult to define. Here, we propose that a situational approach may provide a new perspective for categorizing comfort foods. Using a web-based survey, 322 respondents first provided their lay definition of comfort foods. These definitions included the components of emotions, unhealthiness, nostalgia, tastiness, and ease of preparation. Although some participants listed each of these components, half of the participants listed only one of these components, suggesting that most lay definitions of comfort food are rather sparse. Next, respondents evaluated each of 8 scenarios (illness, celebration, reward, stress, break-up, culture, lonely, and remembrance) in which comfort foods may develop. Each of these categories was endorsed by at least 19% of the sample. Subsequent analyses compared the scenarios that represented negative emotion situations (stress, break-up, lonely, and remembrance) or positive emotion situations (celebration, reward, culture, and remembrance). On the basis of these analyses, we propose a situational taxonomy of comfort food that includes 5 categories: negative emotion (stress, break-up, and lonely), positive emotion (celebration and cultural), illness, reward, and remembrance.