The Psychology of Grocery Stores and How To Overcome
Grocery Stores Are Designed To Make You Fail
Grocery stores (and processed foods!) are very intentionally designed with human psychology in mind. Extensive studies have been done to determine what grocery store layouts will increase consumer spending.
Before you even walk in the store, there are factors beyond your control influencing your experience.
Almost every grocery store has the produce section right when you walk in. Seeing and smelling fresh produce connects us to the primal instinct of needing and obtaining food.
It’s also not a coincidence the bakery tends to be by a front entrance as well. If you even think about a chocolate chip cookie you start salivating. Smell is an extremely powerful motivator!
Other hacks exist throughout the store. The meat section is typically placed by the back, making you walk past isles of processed food products to get there. Remember, this is after you’ve smelled the bakery in the front. Now maybe picking up those packaged cookies or some sweet treats aren’t so random after all.
The music in the store is uplifting, promoting the increase of feel-good hormones, further cementing in the mind the enjoyment of buying food.
Narrow checkout lanes or lines for self check out make it more challenging to put back items you decided you no longer need.
All of this to say, there are factors beyond willpower dictating your decisions about what you buy. When we go into a store with a plan, we can make informed choices not only about what we buy, but how we buy.
How To “Hack” The System
Stick to the Periphery
Stick to the outer sides of the store for the majority of your food purchases. This will ensure you hit the produce section, meat section and whatever processed food items you need in the middle.
Go With a List
Remember there are a lot of structural and visual marketing tactics there to distract you! Having a list to ground you will keep you focused on what you need
Don’t Go Hungry
If your blood sugar is low, your body will crave items that are going to raise it the fastest – sugar and refined carbohydrates. This is a normal (and helpful!) body survival response. If we go shopping when we have stable blood sugar, we are less likely to venture into the processed food isles.
Buy Fun Things!
You’re allowed to have treats! We just want you to make that decision from an informed place rather than a successful marketing tactic. Enjoy your cookies when you buy them 🙂
Remember Food is a Gift
Even though there are factors to consider when grocery shopping, we need to remember how amazing food is! It brings us together over meals, celebrations, special occasions, times of grief, and times of joy.
It is one of the most powerful medicines we utilize. We can balance being mindful of what we consume and living a full life with our community.
Because of food processing, body composition judgements of women, confusion around nutrition, and toxic wellness culture, buying food has become incredibly complicated.
The tools in this course are to help you make decisions so you’re able to tap into your body’s inherent wisdom, away from the marketing and tactics designed to sway your decisions.
Think of grocery shopping less as a perfectionist exercise and more an opportunity to tap into what your body needs when we can listen.
More Tips
Cook at Home
Plan to eat the majority of your foods from home so you can enjoy dining out when the opportunities come up. You have more control over the quality of your food when preparing your own meals.
Small Steps
Don’t focus on perfection, focus on improvement. When we suppress the things we crave instead of consuming them in moderation or creating a healthier substitute, it often pushes us into binging or resentment. You don’t have to give up all sugar or all processed foods! But eat them with intention.
Love Your Food
How can you create more reverence with food? Can you savor your food more, enjoy tasting it more, have a meal with a loved one, cook for your family? How can you create more of a loving relationship with food?
Remember, You are Human
Give yourself grace. There is a billion dollar industry at play marketing and designing foods to be addictive. It is a journey beginning to read food labels, taking things out of our diet, switching to organic. Let it be a process – nothing needs to happen over night.
