Improving Health Through the Application of Ergonomics to Food Practices

Food and nutrition are important to ensuring health, and practices related to food (including obtaining, preparing, consuming, sharing and cleaning up food) involve effortful activity-work. Human Factors and Ergonomics (HF/E) efforts that leverage expertise in across HF/E domains (i.e., physical, cognitive and organizational ergonomics) can provide a holistic approach to supporting human wellbeing and performance in these food practices. For example, ergonomists can attend to the physical environment and tools, the mental processes and/or overall sociotechnical systems involved in food practice all to facilitate food practices that increase the health and wellbeing of humans across diverse needs, abilities and limitations. This panel will introduce the ergonomics of food, highlighting ongoing work as well as opportunities for further work impact.