Hedonistic rationality: Healthy food consumption choice using muddling-through

This study offers a comprehensive understanding of factors affecting food consumption by grounding hypotheses within the theory of muddling-through. Muddling-through is a decision-making theory that explains decisions based on conflicting goals and contexts where applying analytics to aid decision-making offers severe limitations (Lindblom, 1959). Results based on two separate datasets demonstrate the substantial explanatory ability of muddling-through in understanding healthy eating behaviors. The article concludes with implications for consumers and organizations promoting healthy food consumption and future research.