Global Scientific Trends on Healthy Eating from 2002 to 2021: A Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis

Abstract

Diet has been recognized as a vital risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), climate changes, and increasing population, which has been reflected by a rapidly growing body of the literature related to healthy eating. To reveal a panorama of the topics related to healthy eating, this study aimed to characterize and visualize the knowledge structure, hotspots, and trends in this field over the past two decades through bibliometric analyses. Publications related to healthy eating between 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2021 were retrieved and extracted from the Web of Science database. The characteristics of articles including publication years, journals, authors, institutions, countries/regions, references, and keywords were assessed. The analyses on co-authorship, co-occurrence, and co-citation were performed and network visualization maps were constructed by VOSviewer. Major subdomains identified by bibliometrics were further discussed and analyzed. A total of 12,442 articles on healthy eating were identified. Over the past two decades, the annual global publications increased from 71 to 1764, showing a nearly 25-fold growth. The journal Nutrients published the most articles and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition possessed the highest citations. The United States, Harvard University, and Hu, Frank B. were identified as the most productive and influential country, institution, and author, respectively. The co-occurrence cluster analysis of the top 100 keywords formed four clusters: (1) the food insecurity environment for youths highlighting the necessity and significance of implementing healthy eating in early life; (2) sustainable advantages of the Mediterranean diet; (3) the importance of an overall healthy lifestyle optimization leveraged by eHealth; (4) the challenges during the course of healthy eating against obesity, which are prominent in reflecting the knowledge structure, hotspots, and trends. Moreover, COVID-19, orthorexia nervosa, sustainability, microbiota, food insecurity, and e-health are identified keywords that represented the latest high-frequency keywords and indicated the emerging frontiers of healthy eating. This study indicates that the number of publications on healthy eating will increase in the future and that healthy dietary patterns and clinical applications of healthy eating will be the next hotspots in this research field.

Psychosocial and psychological interventions for schizophrenia relapse prevention: A bibliometric analysis

“…Keywords with high frequency are often used to summarize the main theme, reveal the knowledge foundation and structure and identify cutting-edge perspectives of research domains (Fang et al, 2023 ). Of mention, this study is not an exhaustive description of every detail, but rather provides a macro perspective through methodological integration to support scientific judgment of trends in psychosocial and psychological interventions for schizophrenia relapse prevention.…”

Examining the Market Potential and Feasiblity of Chipotle Mexican Grill in the Chinese Market

“…In the past two decades, people started to shift their focus to food consumption and pay more attention to healthy dietary practices. The number of articles published and citations for studies on healthy eating has steadily increased from 2002 to 2021, whereas the number of publications has increased almost 25-fold over the last twenty years [8]. These intensive discussions on healthy eating patterns have gained consumers' attention and concerns about food consumption.…”

A Bibliometric Analysis of eHealth Scholarship (2000-2024): Multidisciplinary Contributions and Research Trends (Preprint)

“…Most bibliometric reviewers summarized literature subsets defined by eHealth user needs: promoting physical activity, healthy eating, and weight loss [9][10][11][12], preventing substance use [13], and providing e-mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic [14]. In addition, researchers reviewed digital technologies for health behavior change [15] and eHealth tools for anticoagulation management after cardiac valve replacement [16].…”