Food Economics for Nutrition Professionals

This webinar was presented live on November 8, 2023. The CPE associated with this event will expire on December 31, 2025.

Nutrition and economics have long been interconnected, now more than ever with the dietary transition occurring at all levels of the food system. The economics of food and nutrition has changed dramatically in recent years, and registered dietitians and other clinicians who are interested in nutritional status need knowledge of the context in which people make economic decisions about food and feeding.

The goal of economics is to predict and explain observed choices, including about food intake, and people's preferences can be inferred from their choices. Food choice is one of the oldest topics in economics, but newer knowledge of diet-health relationships allows for a useful merging of dietetics, nutritional epidemiology, and food economics to improve contextual understanding of patients and their lived experiences with food and feeding. This webinar will explore the lynchpin "social and environmental factors" aspect of nutritional assessment, introducing formal economic logic and analysis so that RDNS and NDTRs can better understand how patients and clients make choices about food.

CPE Level: 2
CPEU: 1.0 (valid until December 31, 2025)

Performance Indicators:

• 1.7.6 Applies knowledge of health determinants when planning, developing and implementing services, programs, interventions, meal plans and menus.
• 12.2.1 Identifies determinants of health and influences on population health status.
• 1.7.5 Applies knowledge of cultural foods, religious traditions, eating patterns and food and nutrition trends.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify the economic determinants of dietary choice including prices, income, and preferences.
2. Explain the economics framework used to explain and predict dietary choice.
3. Analyze the impact of interventions and policies that may affect dietary choice.

Speaker

Amelia B. Finaret, PhD, RD, LDN, is an Associate Professor of Global Health Studies at Allegheny College and a clinical dietitian at Titusville Hospital in rural Pennsylvania. As a food economist and a dietitian, she aims to leverage social science and policy knowledge to improve patient outcomes. Her research focuses on the quality of nutrition and dietary data, and the factors that might affect the accuracy of data collected about a person.