Healthy eating in the wild: An experience-sampling study of how food environments and situational factors shape out-of-home dietary success

= 6447). We find that even health-conscious people select food outlets and their respective micro-environments based on short-term goals, such as ease, taste, and speed of a consumption episode rather than long-term health outcomes. Using multiple regression, we show that micro-environments that promote healthy food, make such food more appealing and easier to select facilitate healthy food choices. We further identify some of the psychological mechanisms through which the micro-environment can affect food choices, as well as how individual characteristics moderate the relationship between specific micro-environmental factors and goal success. Taken together, our findings suggest the opportunity for, and arguably also necessity of, reshaping food environments to better facilitate healthier choices and support public health in the face of increasing out-of-home food consumption and the adverse consequences of unhealthy diets.