This article aims to explore the compensatory behaviors associated with the consumption of vice and virtue foods and how these behaviors are moderated by the act of eating alone.
A quantitative analysis of food diary data collected from 14,036 South Koreans from March 2019 to November 2022 was employed, using social facilitation theory to investigate how the presence of other people affects compensatory behavior (CB) in eating. Binary regression models were used in the analysis.
Prior consumption of vice foods leads to consumption of virtue foods and the avoidance of vice foods, w hile prior consumption of virtue foods leads to avoidance of virtue consumption in subsequent meals. Eating alone has been found to significantly mitigate CB in the form of avoiding either vice foods after vice foods or virtue foods after virtue foods.
The use of a large-scale, real-world secondary data set extends the literature on compensatory behaviors. The findings regarding the moderating effect of social eating contribute to the understanding of the complex dynamics of social facilitation and provide directions for future public health policy. Future research could investigate CB in different social contexts.
Findings contribute to a limited body of information on the moderating factor on CB, regardless of research domain.
