World Food Day 2024: My journey into behavioural science and meat consumption
World Food Day highlights a pressing reality: food insecurity continues to affect millions around the world, exacerbated by climate change, inflation and geopolitical conflicts. In recognition of this year's World Food Day, DPhil student Elif Naz Çoker shares insights from her research and experiences of the DPhil in Primary Health Care programme. Elif is a member of the Sustainable Healthy Food Group within our Health Behaviours team, which focuses on developing policies and interventions that aim to foster healthier, more sustainable food environments, offering crucial steps toward a future where nutritious food is accessible to all.
About the author
Elif Naz Çoker is a DPhil in Primary Health Care student and a member of the Sustainable Healthy Food Group within the Health Behaviours Team. Her research expertise is in social norms, behavioural change, intervention design and implementation, particularly in the context of reducing meat consumption.
Growing up in politically and socially tumultuous Turkey, I have felt a profound curiosity towards understanding the key drivers behind human decision making especially in the context of policy change. I wanted to know how demographic characteristics and social influences play a role in individuals’ response to new policies that incentivise them to change their behaviour health, wellbeing and environmental outcomes.
I started my undergraduate studies at SciencesPo as part of its Dual BA programme with Columbia University. After finishing my first bachelor’s in Political Science with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies, I moved to New York and went on to complete my second degree in Psychology with a concentration in Sociology.
My multidisciplinary education taught me that human behaviour and decision-making do not exist in a vacuum, but are instead influenced by a myriad of factors including emotions and attitudes, knowledge and skills, physical and social environments. Understanding this complexity motivated me to pursue further studies in social psychology research.
After completing my MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, I worked as a research assistant at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. During this period, my work included an in-depth study of the environmental and health impacts of meat production and consumption.
Meat consumption and social norms
Western countries, including the UK, consume meat products up to three times more than the amount recommended by nutritionists and environmental scientists. Research shows overconsumption of meat is linked to cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer, and could also be an indicator of overconsumption of calories. With regard to environmental impact, overproduction of meat increases greenhouse gas emissions, uses up land and water, and threatens biodiversity.
However, changing diets and motivating people to reduce their meat consumption is an extremely complex task. Meat has historically been seen as a symbol of prosperity and masculinity and is intrinsically linked to cultural and social values that are difficult to disentangle.
One way of motivating people to reduce their meat consumption is through targeting some of the social factors that influence their food choices. Humans are social animals, and we rely on each other as useful sources of information. We like to observe others' behaviours to give us clues about what the right course of action is in a given situation, and we care about what others in our social networks value and approve of. In psychology, we refer to this as 'social norms'. Social norms are a set of informal, unwritten rules or standards for behaviour that are collectively created These norms can change across cultures, time, geographic locations, and even different groups.
Reducing meat consumption and my DPhil work
During my research assistantship, I was involved in a project that surveyed a nationally representative sample of 737 individuals measuring their perceptions and intentions regarding a number of pro-environmental behaviours. We found that perceived social norms indeed play an important role in the intention of people to reduce meat consumption.
Knowing I wanted to work more on reducing meat consumption and social norms, I came across the incredible work produced by the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project which was an interdepartmental collaboration at Oxford to generate evidence and provide tools for decision makers to promote both healthy and sustainable diets. In October 2020, I joined the department to pursue my DPhil, supervised by Prof Susan Jebb and Associate Prof Rachel Pechey. I had the opportunity to collaborate with nutritionists, epidemiologists, biologists, sociologists, economists within the framework of LEAP.
As part of my DPhil, we tested social norm-based interventions to reduce meat consumption through the first randomised controlled trial as well as a randomised crossover trial in real-world food purchasing settings across the UK. Both studies found no evidence of the effect of the intervention, challenging previous findings from online and university-setting studies. This may be explained by the low salience of the interventions in a busy, fast-paced environment, or the strength of existing eating habits in restaurants and cafeterias. The findings suggest that norm messaging interventions, when delivered as an isolated intervention, may not be effective to change a complex and socially grounded dietary behaviour such as meat consumption.
In addition to the field trials, I have run the first comprehensive and nationally representative survey study in the UK to explore ethnic differences in food choices and dietary habits in the UK among White, Black, and South Asian British populations. Exploring the role of social networks and norms, I found that both South Asian and Black respondents wanted to be similar to their friends and family in their food choices and reported being influenced by them more than White respondents. The differences found by this research have highlighted the importance of including diverse samples in research and intervention design in order to fully represent the culturally rich and varied demographics of real-world populations.
There is still a lot of work to be done to find the most effective interventions and tools to reduce meat consumption, and my colleagues within the Sustainable Healthy Food Group are conducting some exciting field studies including increasing the availability of plant-based options, changing defaults, and providing nutritional and environmental impact labels on food items. Feel free to reach out to me at elif.coker@phc.ox.ac.uk if you would like to find out more.
Reflections on my DPhil journey
I have had a wonderful four years completing my doctoral studies, but it wasn’t without its ups and downs. As an international and neurodivergent student, here are three main pieces of advice I’d give to prospective students:
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Dedicate a longer time than you think is necessary to seek out and apply for funding schemes. I think people tend to forget that as an international student not from the Commonwealth of Nations, the European Union, or a country that has historic ties to Oxford, it can be extremely difficult to find funding opportunities that you are eligible for. Know how your status can put you at a disadvantage. Apply for small pots of funding, find teaching, supervision, and tutoring jobs at different colleges for extra income, and have more conversations with your colleagues to discover funding schemes you may not have heard of before.
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A DPhil is really what you make of it. You might get away with only conducting the minimum number of studies and write a thesis and still walk out with a doctorate, or you can start building your career with publications, teaching opportunities, public engagement activities, professional training, conference presentations, networking, and more. Start thinking early about how you want your next 3-4 years to look like, and say yes to opportunities that come your way, no matter how time consuming or daunting they may seem. Two of the highlights of my DPhil were giving a talk at the Oxford Natural History Museum and being a guest on Oxford Sparks Big Questions podcast, things that would not have happened if I didn’t express my interest in science communication to my colleagues and didn’t dedicate extra time and effort preparing to do these engagements in addition to keeping up with my regular studies.
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Take care of your mental and physical health. Even the luckiest or most resilient of us can go through really difficult times during their DPhil, and a lot of unpredicted, external unfortunate events can befall us. I got diagnosed with adult ADHD during my studies, which I have talked about in the department's Wellbeing Wednesday monthly newsletter, and had to retroactively suspend a term when there was a national shortage of my medications. Talking openly and honestly about your health and wellbeing to colleagues, supervisors, director of graduate studies, college tutors, counsellors is extremely important to completing your DPhil without burning yourself out. Taking time out and seeking appropriate care is nothing to be ashamed of and is often the key to true, long lasting success.
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