The effect of perspectives in food pictures on unhealthy food choices

2021 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 104140
Author(s):  
Eva Meersseman ◽  
Iris Vermeir ◽  
Maggie Geuens
2021 ◽  
pp. 113409
Author(s):  
Monique C. Alblas ◽  
Saar Mollen ◽  
Marieke L. Fransen ◽  
Bas van den Putte
Keyword(s):  

10.2196/15717 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. e15717
Author(s):  
Yi-Chin Kato-Lin ◽  
Uttara Bharath Kumar ◽  
Bhargav Sri Prakash ◽  
Bhairavi Prakash ◽  
Vasini Varadan ◽  
...  

Background Video and mobile games have been shown to have a positive impact on behavior change in children. However, the potential impact of game play patterns on outcomes of interest are yet to be understood, especially for games with implicit learning components. Objective This study investigates the immediate impact of fooya!, a pediatric dietary mobile game with implicit learning components, on food choices. It also quantifies children’s heterogeneous game play patterns using game telemetry and determines the effects of these patterns on players’ food choices. Methods We analyzed data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 104 children, aged 10 to 11 years, randomly assigned to the treatment group (played fooya!, a dietary mobile game developed by one of the authors) or the control group (played Uno, a board game without dietary education). Children played the game for 20 minutes each in two sessions. After playing the game in each session, the children were asked to choose 2 out of 6 food items (3 healthy and 3 unhealthy choices). The number of healthy choices in both sessions was used as the major outcome. We first compared the choice and identification of healthy foods between treatment and control groups using statistical tests. Next, using game telemetry, we determined the variability in game play patterns by quantifying game play measures and modeled the process of game playing at any level across all students as a Markov chain. Finally, correlation tests and regression models were used to establish the relationship between game play measures and actual food choices. Results We saw a significant main effect of the mobile game on number of healthy foods actually chosen (treatment 2.48, control 1.10; P<.001; Cohen d=1.25) and identified (treatment 7.3, control 6.94; P=.048; Cohen d=.25). A large variation was observed in children’s game play patterns. Children played an average of 15 game levels in 2 sessions, with a range of 2 to 23 levels. The greatest variation was noted in the proportion of scoring activities that were highly rewarded, with an average of 0.17, ranging from 0.003 to 0.98. Healthy food choice was negatively associated with the number of unhealthy food facts that children read in the game (Kendall τ=–.32, P=.04), even after controlling for baseline food preference. Conclusions A mobile video game embedded with implicit learning components showed a strong positive impact on children’s food choices immediately following the game. Game telemetry captured children’s different play patterns and was associated with behavioral outcomes. These results have implications for the design and use of mobile games as an intervention to improve health behaviors, such as the display of unhealthy food facts during game play. Longitudinal RCTs are needed to assess long-term impact. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04082195; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04082195, registered retrospectively.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Van Malderen ◽  
Eva Kemps ◽  
Laurence Claes ◽  
Sandra Verbeken ◽  
Lien Goossens

IntroductionOne in three adolescents frequently consume unhealthy snacks, which is associated with negative developmental outcomes. To date, it remains unclear how intrapersonal factors account for food choices in adolescents. Guided by the dual-pathway model, the current study aimed to: (1) examine the joint contribution of inhibitory control and attentional bias in predicting unhealthy food choices in adolescents, and (2) determine whether this mechanism is more pronounced in adolescents who experience loss of control over eating (LOC).Materials and MethodsA community sample of 80 adolescents (65% female; 10–17 years old, Mage = 13.28, SD = 1.94) was recruited. Based on a self-report questionnaire, 28.7% of this sample reported at least one episode of LOC over the past month. Food choice was assessed using a computerized food choice task. Both inhibitory control and attentional bias were measured with behavioral tasks (go/no-go and dot probe task, respectively). Binary logistic regressions were conducted to address the research questions.ResultsInhibitory control and attentional bias did not significantly interact to predict unhealthy food choices. However, there was a significant three-way interaction between inhibitory control, attentional bias and LOC. For adolescents without LOC, the combination of poor inhibitory control and low attentional bias was significantly associated with unhealthy food choice. Surprisingly, for adolescents with LOC, there was no significant association between unhealthy food choice and inhibitory control or attentional bias.DiscussionDual-pathway processes do not seem to add to the explanation of food choice behavior for adolescents with LOC. For adolescents who do not experience LOC, those with poor inhibitory control combined with low attentional bias might be at particular risk for making unhealthy food choices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oh-Ryeong Ha ◽  
Haley J. Killian ◽  
Ann M. Davis ◽  
Seung-Lark Lim ◽  
Jared M. Bruce ◽  
...  

Children are vulnerable to adverse effects of food advertising. Food commercials are known to increase hedonic, taste-oriented, and unhealthy food decisions. The current study examined how promoting resilience to food commercials impacted susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making in children. To promote resilience to food commercials, we utilized the food advertising literacy intervention intended to enhance cognitive skepticism and critical thinking, and decrease positive attitudes toward commercials. Thirty-six children aged 8–12 years were randomly assigned to the food advertising literacy intervention or the control condition. Eighteen children received four brief intervention sessions via video over 1 week period. In each session, children watched six food commercials with interspersed embedded intervention narratives. While watching food commercials and narratives, children were encouraged to speak their thoughts out loud spontaneously (“think-aloud”), which provided children's attitudes toward commercials. Eighteen children in the control condition had four control sessions over 1 week, and watched the same food commercials without intervention narratives while thinking aloud. The first and last sessions were held in the laboratory, and the second and third sessions were held at the children's homes. Susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making was indicated by the decision weights of taste attributes, taste perception, food choices, ad libitum snacking, and cognitive and affective attitudes toward food commercials. As hypothesized, the intervention successfully decreased susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making evidenced by reduced decision weights of the taste in food decisions, decreased tasty perception of unhealthy foods, and increased cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward food commercials. In addition, as children's opinions assimilated to intervention narratives, their cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward commercials increased. The aforementioned results were not shown in the control condition. However, this brief intervention was not enough to change actual food choices or food consumption. Results of this study suggest that promoting resilience to food commercials by enhancing cognitive skepticism and critical thinking effectively reduced children's susceptibility to unhealthy food-decision making.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-216
Author(s):  
Lauren Trabold Apadula ◽  
Chrissy M Martins

Background: Health conscious consumers often make choices from constrained sets of food options, such as a restaurant menu, in which healthy options may not be present. Aim: The aim of this research was to examine how different decision strategies, such as selection versus rejection, influence the food option chosen when a choice set is restricted to unhealthy options. The mediating role of anticipated guilt was also explored. Methods: An experiment was conducted using a hypothetical choice scenario, in which participants were randomly assigned to a decision making strategy (select versus reject), health objective (diet versus indulge), and relative preference for the options (choice between two preferred options versus one preferred and one non-preferred option) was manipulated. Results: When using a selection strategy, consumers are more likely to choose their most preferred option, regardless of their health objectives, but when using a rejection strategy, health conscious consumers are more likely to avoid their most preferred option and consume a lesser liked alternative. Further, this effect is driven by reduced feelings of guilt. Important boundary conditions include consumer preference for the food options, as health conscious consumers will not reject their favorite option if they do not like the alternative. Conclusions: Decision making strategy influences health conscious consumers’ choices between unhealthy food options.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali B. Mahmoud ◽  
Dieu Hack-Polay ◽  
Leonora Fuxman ◽  
Dina Naquiallah ◽  
Nicholas Grigoriou

Abstract Background This study examines the relationships between childhood food allergy and parental unhealthy food choices for their children across attitudes towards childhood obesity as mediators and parental gender, income and education as potential moderators. Methods We surveyed parents with at least one child between the ages of 6 and 12 living in Canada and the United States. We received 483 valid responses that were analysed using structural equation modelling approach with bootstrapping to test the hypothetical path model and its invariance across the moderators. Results The analysis revealed that pressure to eat fully mediated the effects of childhood food allergy and restriction on parental unhealthy food choices for their children. Finally, we found that parental gender moderated the relationship between childhood food allergy and the pressure to eat. Conclusions The paper contributes to the literature on food allergies among children and the marginalisation of families with allergies. Our explorative model is a first of its kind and offers a fresh perspective on complex relationships between variables under consideration. Although our data collection took place prior to Covid-19 outbreak, this paper bears yet particular significance as it casts light on how families with allergies should be part of the priority groups to have access to food supply during crisis periods.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
Eleanor T. Campbell ◽  
Ethelwynn Stellenberg ◽  
Natasha Nurse-Clarke

Child obesity prevention is a relatively new phenomenon in developing countries where food insecurity and malnutrition have been the public health focus. Yet obesity is a global health problem. The purpose of this study was to compare healthy and unhealthy food choices among a convenience sample of 114 adolescent youths from ethically and economically diverse communities in Cape Town, South Africa and New York City using surveys and focus groups. Findings showed no significant differences in healthy food choices among participants regardless of socioeconomic status (SES). For unhealthy food choices, there were significant differences between adolescents from low and middle SES levels. Interviews indicated that unhealthy choices were influenced by money, convenience, and parents. School feeding programs were influential in initiating and sustaining healthy choices, whereas barriers included money and convenience of access to unhealthy food options. Parents and schools provided the most influence on these adolescents’ healthy options by including fruits and vegetables in homemade and school program lunches.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 2194
Author(s):  
Lana Mulier ◽  
Eva Meersseman ◽  
Iris Vermeir ◽  
Hendrik Slabbinck

To tackle obesity, upgrading the image of healthy food is increasingly relevant. Rather than focusing on long-term benefits, an effective way to promote healthy food consumption through visual advertising is to increase its pleasure perception. We investigate whether implied motion, a popular trend in food pictures, affects food perceptions through anticipated consumption pleasure. Prior research shows that motion affects food perceptions, but these studies focused on limited food categories, using experiments with a single food stimulus, and mainly showing unhealthy food effects. Therefore, we aim to (1) replicate prior findings on the effects of food in motion on appeal, tastiness, healthiness, and freshness perceptions; (2) examine whether these effects differ for healthy and unhealthy food; and (3) investigate whether anticipated pleasure of consumption drives the effects of implied motion on food perceptions. Three between-subjects experiments (N = 626) reveal no evidence for the effectiveness of motion (vs. no motion) across a large variety of food products. We further show no differential effects for healthy versus unhealthy foods. Moreover, implied motion does not increase appeal or taste perceptions through anticipated pleasure. Considering the current replication crisis, these findings provide more nuanced insights into the effectiveness of motion in visual food advertising.


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