Numbers are often used in health messaging to guide behavior and spark motivation. But not every number that circulates widely is grounded in solid science. One claim in particular has gained traction over the years. It suggests that people make more than 200 food-related decisions every day without realizing it.

According to Maria Almudena Claassen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, this idea creates a misleading impression. "This number paints a distorted picture of how people make decisions about their food intake and how much control they have over it," she says.

Claassen worked with Ralph Hertwig, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Jutta Mata, an associate research scientist at the Institute and Professor for Health Psychology at the University of Mannheim. Together, they published research showing how flawed measurement methods can fuel inaccurate assumptions about eating behavior.

The Origin of the 200 Food Decisions Claim

The widely cited estimate of 200 daily food decisions traces back to a 2007 study by U.S. scientists Brian Wansink[1] and Jeffery Sobal. In that study, 154 participants were first asked to estimate how many decisions they made each day about eating and drinking. On average, they reported 14.4 decisions.

Participants were then asked to estimate how many choices they made during a typical meal across several categories, including "when," "what," "how much," "where," and "with whom." These estimates were multiplied by the number of meals, snacks, and beverages participants said they consumed in a typical day. When added together, this calculation produced an average of 226.7 decisions per day.

The researchers interpreted the gap between the two estimates, a difference of 212.3 decisions, as evidence that most food decisions are unconscious or "mindless."

Why Researchers Say the Number Is Misleading

Claassen and her colleagues argue that this conclusion does not hold up. They point to both methodological and conceptual weaknesses in the study design and say the discrepancy can be explained by a well-known cognitive bias called the subadditivity effect.

This effect occurs when people give higher numerical estimates after breaking a broad question into many smaller parts. In other words, asking about food decisions piece by piece naturally inflates the total. According to the researchers, the large number of supposed "mindless" decisions reflects this bias rather than an observed reality.

The team also cautions that repeating such simplified claims can shape how people view their own behavior in harmful ways. "Such a perception can undermine feelings of self-efficacy," says Claassen. "Simplified messages like this distract from the fact that people are perfectly capable of making conscious and informed food decisions."