The fear of missing out (FOMO) concept will be examined in a new research project into people's compulsion to try new food products.
"There are some people who perhaps see lots of new foods and have to try them," University of Newcastle Professor Tracy Burrows said.
"There's always new foods."
Take KitKats for example.
Once there was the standard milk chocolate version. Now there are varieties that include gooey caramel, Milo, mint, milky bar, dark chocolate and green tea.
An appetite for the new, combined with fast food marketing, is believed to be fuelling people's food addictions.
Amid this desire for the latest packaged food products, the "chemical cocktail of ingredients" within them gets ignored.
"Think of all the new foods on the supermarket shelves. There are so many - whole aisles of snack foods," Professor Burrows said.
"That fear of missing out is topical for a lot of people. It seems to make people want to indulge in new food and drink products."
The professor's team has released an online survey, open to all Australian adults, that considered whether FOMO played a role in eating behaviours.
"FOMO describes the concern of missing out on a rewarding experience, a modern psychological phenomenon that has yet to be explored in relation to addictive eating," the survey stated.
"The survey contains multiple-choice questions only and will investigate eating behaviours including addictive eating and reward-driven eating, as well as FOMO, boredom proneness and mental health."
Professor Burrows said a new research tool for FOMO had been released.
"So we're utilising that for the first time to explore eating behaviours," she said.
The team's research into addictive eating showed that people eat food for different reasons.
The professor highlighted that there were "a lot of different people in the community".
"Some are traditional and probably eat similar foods every day," she said.
But there was "a big proportion of the population" who eat and drink the latest packaged foods that make billions for corporations, drive the obesity epidemic and keep doctors busy.
She said there would not have been "this massive emergence of new foods" if people didn't buy them.
While people often focus on what they eat, the professor believed "why you eat" was important.
Her team's food addiction research examined why people eat what they do, without telling them to "eat this or that".
"We know that the food environment plays a big role. It triggers people to eat," she said.
This included "food cues" such as advertising and aromas like the smell of coffee.
"It definitely drives behaviour," she said.
Her team previously tailored a program based on personality type to help research participants meet goals.
This was done through TRACE [Targeted Research on Addictive and Compulsive Eating], which aimed to help people trace their behaviour to understand why they eat compulsively.
This included coping strategies for food triggers, with different approaches for those prone to depression, anxiety or high energy for example. The online survey is at redcap.link/FoMo_study.
