Mental Health Awareness Week: Your food choices

Dan Outram

This piece by Dan Outram tackles how smarter food marketing can support our mental health.

As the UK continues to grapple with widening gaps in both physical and mental health, particularly in regions like the North West, it’s high time we reframe the role of food marketing, not just in combatting obesity, but in supporting emotional wellbeing.

The new Less Healthy Food (LHF) regulation coming into effect this October marks a welcome policy shift. But lasting behavioural change depends on something deeper: our emotions.

For many people, food is more than fuel; it’s a source of comfort, joy, even identity - and at a time when anxiety, low mood and decision fatigue are at an all-time high, supermarket shelves often become silent battlegrounds for emotional coping.

That’s where marketers and food retailers have a golden, but often overlooked, opportunity - at Linney, we’re seeing progressive brands adopt more emotionally intelligent strategies - ones that don’t shame or pressure, but guide and support.

People respond better to positive reinforcement. Messages framed around gains (“high in fibre”) consistently outperform deficit-based language (“low in sugar”) because it taps into intrinsic motivation and avoids activating guilt.

Dan Outram, Business Director at Linney

This subtle ‘permissible indulgence’ strategy, offering better-for-you versions of comfort foods, enables emotional continuity while shifting consumption patterns.

It’s less about overhauling legacy products and more about reimagining them in ways that feel familiar but slightly more mindful. Think McDonald’s fruit-for-fries swaps or Walkers’ “Yummy With” range, which reimagines classic flavours with reduced salt content.

These small nudges preserve emotional satisfaction while supporting healthier habits, and the goal isn’t to pathologise emotional eating, but to understand it and design food environments around it.

When brands remove the mental cost of decision-making, they don’t just encourage healthier eating. They help restore autonomy, reduce guilt, and spark a culture shift to - in doing so, we don’t just improve public health, we nurture public happiness.