During recent trips to visit family and friends across the United States, my diet changed drastically from my standard fare at home. The menus in each city reflected the tastes and traditions of the people I visited. That got me thinking about how nutrition professionals are always trying to tease out the factors that influence our food selections. 

For example, dietitians spend considerable time encouraging clients to spend their dollars on fresh and nutrient-packed foods and not on processed, nutrient-poor selections. But we know that income and dollars available for food influence the purchases people make. Often, price rather than the potential health benefit is the deciding factor in what makes it to the table.

A study released in March by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins focuses on exactly these and other influences in the foods consumers select. In fact, the study listed advertising and cost, as well as taste, palatability, convenience, ethnicity, and gender as factors that influence food choices.

The most interesting part of the study for me was the finding that women choose foods with lower fat, cholesterol, and sodium compared to men, who in turn ate more fruits and vegetables, fiber, and calcium.

As you consider your own diet, try to figure out what factors influence your choices. Do you select foods based on where or how you grew up, on marketing and advertising by food companies, on what tastes you find comforting, or on a particular food's perceived health benefit?

It's important to understand the reasons you select certain foods over others. This will make it easer when the time comes to make changes, exchanging some of the bad for the good.