TABLE 2.

Application of the consumption process framework to 3 scenarios¹

	Case Study Examples
	Example 1	Example 2	Example 3
Summary of practitioner goals	A clinician wants to support a woman in understanding how the foods she eats (what foods, when) may contribute to GI symptoms	A behavioral scientist wants to design an intervention that helps a person with type 2 diabetes to manage blood glucose through food choices and meal timing	A public health practitioner wants to monitor neighborhood-level food security during an economic recession
Element of consumption process
Co-interacting systems	Desired state based on GI pain:Focal system process: person's experience of pain (to examine how unknown food consumption may contribute to GI pain)Subsystem(s) of interest: digestive system (e.g., potential roles of food consumption on gut permeability and inflammation pathways)Surrounding and adjacent system(s) of interest: person's food availability and interpersonal environments (e.g., how presence of family shapes foods available from meal to meal, as well as experiences of pain)	Desired state based on variation in blood glucose, as part of diabetes management:Focal system process: endocrine system function (to examine how food combinations consumed and meal timing affect blood glucose patterns)Subsystem(s) of interest: organ and cellular level changes in metabolic pathways (e.g., changes in concentration of glucose, cell turnover supported by increased autophagy)Surrounding and adjacent system(s) of interest: sociocultural structures shaping timing of eating, sleep, and other schedules	Desired state based on neighborhood-level measures of food security:Focal system process: changes in neighborhood wealth and purchasing behaviors (to examine how wealth and purchasing behaviors impact what and how much is consumed by households, including skipping meals)Subsystem(s) of interest: household-level changes in income and work patterns (e.g., getting a second job) influencing household food purchases and meal routines that ultimately impact food consumptionSurrounding and adjacent system(s) of interest: economic patterns affecting job stability, food prices, neighborhood living costs
Time: timescales anddynamics	Short-term: minute to minute and hourly lags between potentially triggering eating episodes and pain experiencesLong-term: seasonal patterns in symptom intensity potentially attributed to accrued exposure to triggering foods	Short-term: minute to minute changes in blood glucose concentrations in response to specific foods or food combinationsLong-term: month to month changes in magnitude of blood glucose cycles in response to changes in meal timing	Short-term: weekly changes in neighborhood food purchases from nearby food venues and weekly changes in household-level food securityLong-term: year to year changes in adverse childhood experiences connected to food security; year to year changes in neighborhood cost of living and quality of life
Consumption characteristics(focused on quantityand quality)	Quality: specific foods or food components linked to timing of pain experiencesQuantity: relative quantity consumed of suspect food, compared to other days or seasons; frequency of consumption of triggering food	Quantity: relative quantity consumed of food between periods of feeding and caloric restriction (or fasting)Quality: food types and combinations consumed, characterized based on their effects on blood glucose	Quantity: relative quantity of neighborhood food purchases, absolute change in frequency of meal-skippingQuality: types of foods purchased in terms of energy, nutrient density per dollar, and cultural appropriateness to the family

¹GI, gastrointestinal.