饮食习惯(yǐn shí xí guàn) - eating habits in Mandarin

饮食习惯 (yǐnshí xíguàn) is "eating habits" or "dietary habits", built from two pairs: 饮食 (yǐnshí), "food and drink, diet", and 习惯 (xíguàn), "habit". Put together they describe the pattern of what and how someone eats, rather than any single meal.

It is the phrase that shows up in health and lifestyle conversations: 健康的饮食习惯 (jiànkāng de yǐnshí xíguàn), "healthy eating habits", and 改变饮食习惯 (gǎibiàn yǐnshí xíguàn), "to change one's eating habits", are both common collocations worth learning as chunks.

English speakers sometimes reach for a literal "eat food habit" word order, but Mandarin keeps 饮食 (yǐnshí) as a single noun before 习惯 (xíguàn), the same way "eating habits" compounds in English - the structure actually maps quite cleanly once you know the two building blocks.