How Healthy Food Marketing Contributes to Obesity in Consumers


Susanne.Posel-Headline.News.Official- healthy.food.cornell.university.texas.marketing.obesity.consumers.01_occupycorporatismSusanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Co-Founder, Legacy Bio-Naturals

 

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) and Cornell University Food and Brand Lab (FBL) have published a paper on the marketing for healthy foods that trick consumers into purchasing products solely based on the use of the word “healthy”.

The FBL researchers wrote: “When a food is portrayed as healthy, as opposed to unhealthy, consumers report lower hunger levels after consumption, order greater portion sizes of the food, and consume greater amounts of the food.”

This study centered on 50 participants who were asked to associate the words “filling” and “not filling” with various pictures of healthy and unhealthy food.

Volunteers seemed to associate unhealthy foods with the concept of being “full” and countered these findings with measurements using cookies and popcorn to determine how nourishment and feeling full had an impact on healthy or unhealthy as a perception.

Surprisingly, when foods are labeled “healthy”, consumers eat more of it in their effort to improve their diet.

Larger portions of food portrayed as healthy lack the guilt associated with consuming unhealthy foods.

The researchers wrote: “It’s quite ironic. The more we put out foods that are labeled healthy, we could be abetting the obesity epidemic rather than combatting it.”

When food is considered healthy, consumers will overeat because they find it less filling; and the use of the word nourishment in packaging can greatly increase consumption because the consumer thinks it’s “more filling”.

According to the study: “The word ‘nourishing’ brings up another unconscious intuition that seems to override the one attached to the word ‘healthy’.”

Essentially, this study points out how the subconscious mind can shape eating habits.

Joy Dubost, dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), explained: “What your perception is of the food you eat can be very different from how your body is responding to it. Clearly, we need to start addressing both the conscious and the subconscious in our messages about healthy eating.”





Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccupyCorporatism/~3/r6x1V8x2GrQ/

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes