Eating healthy is something that all of us should strive for (but not to the extent of promoting unhealthy eating behavior, of course). Various organizations have spent decades trying to find out how to best encourage people to eat healthy. One paper interested in this topic examined the effectiveness of various healthy food messaging strategies through two studies (Wagner et al., 2015). This article will present the important points of that paper.
Study 1 Methods
The participants in the first study consisted of 369 attendees of a social psychology conference. These participants were presented with three baskets of food:
- One basket containing apples
- One basket containing nut candy bars
- One basket containing individual bags of coffee beans
The nut candy bars and the coffee beans had the same signs next to them throughout the study, but the basket of apples rotated through three different signs. All of these signs said “Honeycrisp Apples”, but with different types of additional information:
- “Minnesota’s state fruit” (the control sign)
- “A healthy choice” (the explicit health message sign)
- “Minnesota’s state fruit”, as well as a red heart with a white check mark on it (the subtle health message sign)
These three signs were rotated every 20 minutes, and attendees grabbed from whichever basket they wanted.
Study 1 Results
The results showed that significantly more participants chose apples when they were paired with the subtle health message sign than when they were paired with the explicit health message sign or the control sign. Regardless of the sign used for the basket of apples, people’s choices of candy or coffee were unaffected. These results suggest that subtle health messaging is better than explicit health messaging at promoting healthy eating.
Study 2 Methods
The participants in study 2 consisted of 292 attendees at a virology conference (to see if the results still held with a non-psychologist population). In study 2, there were only two baskets:
- One basket containing bags of mini carrots (the healthy choice)
- One basket containing bags of potato chips (the indulgent choice)
The potato chips were always labeled the same way (“Potato Chips. A Snack”). Meanwhile, the carrots were labeled with three different signs, similar to study 1. All of the signs said “Carrots”, then had one of the following three bits of additional information:
- “A snack” and a logo of the host university (the control sign)
- “A Healthy snack” and the same logo of the host university (the explicit health messaging sign)
- “A snack” and a red heart with a white check mark on it, as used in the subtle health messaging sign in study 1 (the subtle health messaging sign).
The signs were rotated every 20 minutes, and attendees grabbed from whichever basket they wanted.
Study 2 Results
Again, similar to study 1, significantly more participants grabbed a bag of carrots when paired with the subtle health messaging sign than when paired with the explicit health messaging sign or the control sign. Also, the selection of chips was not affected by the sign used for the carrots, similar to study 1. In other words, the results of study 2 again suggest that subtle health messaging is better at promoting healthy eating behavior than explicit health messaging.
Wrapping up
The results of these two studies indicate that explicitly calling a food healthy does not make someone more likely to choose that food, but subtly suggesting that a food is healthy does make someone more likely to choose that food. This can be useful for school cafeterias, parents trying to get their kids to eat healthier, or brands trying to promote themselves as healthy options. Altogether, when trying to promote a healthy option, subtle messaging appears to be superior to explicit messaging.
References
Wagner, H., Howland, M., Mann, T. (2015). Brief Report: Effects of Subtle and Explicit Health Messages on Food Choice. Health Psychology, 34(1), 79-82. doi: 10.1037/hea0000045
