Feelings of ease and attitudes toward healthy foods (original) (raw)
Related papers
Promoting healthy eating by enhancing the correspondence between attitudes and behavioral intentions
PubMed, 2020
Background: Healthy eating campaigns are not always successful in changing food-related attitudes. Even when interventions produce the desired outcomes in attitudes, it is often challenging to translate those psychological changes into subsequent behaviors. Previous research has shown that elaboration (amount of thinking) is a critical construct for understanding the ability of attitudes to guide behavior. Instead of looking directly at objective elaboration, this study examined attitude-behavior correspondence as a function of subjective elaboration. Method: Participants were first randomly assigned to generate positive or negative arguments with regard to taxing junk food. After this experimental manipulation, participants reported their subjective elaboration (as an additional predictor), and their attitudes and behavioral intentions regarding the proposal (as dependent measures). Results: As hypothesized, the results showed that the greater perceived elaboration, the larger the ability of attitudes to guide behavioral intentions. That is, attitudes were more predictive of behavioral intentions in participants with higher levels of perceived elaboration compared to those with relatively lower levels of subjective thinking. Conclusion: Health initiatives can benefit from considering the extent to which participants perceive thinking about persuasive proposals.
Promoting Healthy Eating Practices through Persuasion Processes
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 2021
The successful impact of healthy eating campaigns often depends on the extent to which messages are effective in changing attitudes and behaviors over time. The present work proposes that healthy eating campaigns can be designed taking into consideration elaboration and validation processes so that the degree of attitude change is maximally influenced and is consequential. The first set of studies described in this review demonstrates the importance of considering elaboration in determining initial attitudes toward healthy foods as well as the subsequent attitude strength consequences (e.g., stability, prediction of behavior, spreading). The second set of studies focuses on the role of perceived validity of one’s thoughts in the domain of eating as a potential mediator of the persuasion process. These studies include campaigns promoting positive attitudes toward healthy eating (e.g., eating of vegetables and fruits), and interventions oriented to decreasing the intake of unhealthy f...
Self-Persuasion Increases Healthy Eating Intention Depending on Cultural Background
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
Unhealthy eating behavior has become a global health risk and thus needs to be influenced. Previous research has found that self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and behavioral intentions, but the influence of the cultural backgrounds of those being persuaded remains unclear. We conducted two studies to investigate the effectiveness of self-persuasion and direct persuasion techniques in promoting healthy eating intention among different ethnicities in the Netherlands. Native Dutch, Moroccan–Dutch, and Turkish–Dutch participated both online and offline. Participants saw a poster with either a self-persuasion message (“Why would you choose healthier food?”) or a direct persuasion message (“Choose healthier food!”), and were then asked to report their intention to eat healthily in the upcoming month. Significant cultural differences were found between native Dutch and Moroccan–Dutch in Study 1, and between the native Dutch and Turkish-Dutch who ...
Appetite, 2021
The HAVISA plan is a Spanish government's policy for the promotion of healthy lifestyles via health messages in television food advertisements. This study evaluated the positive or negative impact (health halo effect) of health messages on food choices and predisposition towards healthy habits of Spanish adolescents. Methods: Randomized controlled study in 11-14 years old adolescents. The intervention group watched television advertisements for unhealthy foods with HAVISA health messages, while the control group watched the same advertisements without them. A self-administered questionnaire measured participants' attitudes towards the products advertised, to diet and physical activity, and recognition of messages. Afterwards they chose between fruit and unhealthy snacks. The differences between the two groups were then compared. Results: A total of 27.2% of the control group versus 29.6% of the intervention group chose fruit (p = 0.54). Both groups displayed high desire for (7.24 vs. 7.40, p = 0.29) and intention to consume (6.67 vs. 6.73, p = 0.63) the unhealthy products advertised. There were no differences in perceived healthiness of these foods (4.11 vs. 4.19, p = 0.74), or perceived importance of a healthy diet (3.17 vs. 3.12, p = 0.55) or physical activity (4.53 vs. 4.51, p = 0.73). Desire for vegetables (2.49 vs. 2.66, p = 0.08) and fruit (3.15 vs. 3.30, p = 0.09) were higher in the intervention group, but the differences were not significant. Only 47.6% of participants noticed the presence of health messages; of these, 31% correctly recalled their content. Conclusion: HAVISA health messages changed neither the attitudes nor immediate eating behaviors of adolescents. There was no immediate healthy-lifestyle promoter or adverse health halo effect, probably due to the messages' low prominence. Further research should evaluate the long-term effect of repeated exposure to health messages.
Attitudes toward health-messages: The link between perceived attention and subjective strength
Introduction. – Many efforts are invested in promoting healthy attitudes and behaviors; nonetheless thereis no clear, definitive evidence of sustained effectiveness of those efforts in all cases.Objective. – The present study examined the role of perceived attention in changing attitudes toward veg-etable consumption as well as the perceived stability and resistance of those changes (attitude strength).Method. – Participants were randomly assigned to read a strong or weak health communication arguingin favor of vegetable consumption. After reading the message, participants reported attitudes toward thishealth issue, the perceived attention, and the perceived strength associated with their evaluations.Results. – Participants who reported high (vs. low) perceived attention showed a greater effect of argumentquality on persuasion. Furthermore, such participants also reported stronger attitudes compared to thosewho reported low perceived attention.Conclusion. – This study showed that attitudes toward vegetable consumption can be changed after read-ing a persuasive message, and that the extent of perceived attention moderated the extent to which thosechanges were perceived as stable and resistant (stronger attitudes).
Pathways to Persuasion: Cognitive and Experiential Responses to Health-Promoting Mass Media Messages
Communication Research, 2010
The experience of transportation—being absorbed in a narrative—and its relationship to persuasion were considered in two studies exploring responses to health-promoting mass media messages. Following Epstein’s (1994) cognitive-experiential self-theory, two pathways to persuasion were considered: cognitive and experiential. In Study 1 ( n = 121), smokers who experienced increased transportation in response to antismoking messages reported that they would make a greater effort to quit smoking, and this effect was mediated by both experiential (emotional and self-referencing) and cognitive responses to the messages. In Study 2 ( n = 110), experiential responses to magazine messages promoting skin protection were related to intentions to protect oneself, and this effect was mediated by feelings of risk.The implications of these results are discussed in terms of principles for effective health communication campaigns as well as theoretical advances in narrative persuasion in the context ...
Relaxed minds for healthier food choice at school: A field experiment in southern Mexico
2024
Stress leads to unhealthy food choices since the school-age stage. Yet, there is limited evidence particularly in low-and middle-income countries regarding the impact of stress-reduction strategies on school-age children's food choices. Such aspects were crucial during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated psychological distress and unhealthier food choices among children. During the pandemic period, we conducted a eld experiment in southern Mexico to assess the impact of stressreduction strategies on the food choices of over 1,400 children aged 9-12. Half of the school-classes in the sample were randomly assigned to a stress reduction strategy namely meditation, which comprised six audios with basic relaxation techniques and intuitive messages to guide food choices. Additionally, all participants received information signalling that an amaranth snack was nutritious (i.e., the healthy snack), which was paired with a chocolate bar (i.e., the unhealthy snack) as part of a snack choice experiment. The meditation program effectively reduced stress among treated children. The effect was larger among students attending schools in lower-income areas. In general, we found that the share of students choosing the healthy snack did not differ between the treated and the control groups. Yet, we highlighted that meditation increased healthy snack choices by 4%-points among children that chose their snack for non-health or nutrition-related reasons. Upon collecting their snack, students had the chance to exchange their original choice for the other snack. Students that meditated were more likely to exchange their originally chosen "unhealthy snack" towards the healthy snack than students in the control group. Our study sheds some light on the relevance of addressing psychological well-being to complement other strategies to improve food choice at school.
Current Developments in Nutrition
Background: Existing initiatives to promote healthy eating remain largely ineffective as individuals struggle to adhere to dietary recommendations. Therefore, challenging the strategies currently used is of significant importance. Recent studies have indicated the potential of an approach oriented towards eating pleasure to promote the consumption of healthy foods. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare perceptions and the potential effect of pleasure-oriented and health-oriented messages promoting healthy eating among French-Canadians. Methods: Two leaflets similar in all respects, except for the message orientation (pleasure or health), were developed. Perceived message orientation and effectiveness, perceptions towards healthy eating as well as emotions, attitude towards healthy eating, and intention to eat healthily were evaluated. A total of 100 adults (50% women; mean ± SD age 45.1 ± 13.0 y) were randomly assigned to read 1 of the 2 leaflets (pleasure: n = 50; health: n = 50). Questionnaires were completed online and data were also collected at a visit made to the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods. Results: The difference in message orientation (pleasure compared with health) was well perceived by participants (P ≤ 0.01). The pleasure-oriented message was successful in inducing the perception that eating healthy can be pleasurable (pre-compared with post-reading; P = 0.01). Perceived message effectiveness and induced emotions in response to reading were similar between leaflets. Both messages significantly improved global attitude towards healthy eating (P ≤ 0.01) and increased intention to eat healthily (P < 0.001). Additional analyses showed that the affective attitude towards healthy eating increased more after reading the pleasure leaflet than the health leaflet (P = 0.05), whereas the health message tended to improve cognitive attitude more than the pleasure leaflet (P = 0.06). Conclusions: These findings suggest that the leaflets would be appropriate to promote healthy eating through 2 distinct approaches (health and pleasure paradigms) and propose that different effects on attitude could be observed from these 2 approaches. Curr Dev Nutr 2019;3:nzz012.
Combining Self-Affirmation With Implementation Intentions to Promote Fruit and Vegetable Consumption
Health Psychology, 2014
Objective: The current study tested whether self-affirmation in the context of a threatening health message helps promote a health behavior (fruit and vegetable consumption) over a 3-month period, and whether adding a manipulation to support the translation of intentions into behavior (an implementation intentions induction) enhances the impact of self-affirmation. Methods: Participants (N ϭ 332, 71% women) reported their baseline consumption and were randomly assigned to condition in a 2 (selfaffirmation: yes, no) ϫ 2 (implementation intentions: formed, not formed) between-subjects factorial design. They completed a self-affirmation/control task and then read a health communication advising eating at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables daily. Next participants reported intentions for behavior change, after which they formed/did not form relevant implementation intentions. Consumption was measured again 7 days and 3 months postintervention. Results: Self-affirmed (vs. nonaffirmed) participants reported eating more fruit and vegetables at both follow-ups. Forming (vs. not forming) implementation intentions was also beneficial for consumption. At 7 days, there was also a significant self-affirmation ϫ implementation intentions interaction: consumption was highest when self-affirmed participants also formed implementation intentions. Conclusions: The present study offers new evidence concerning the impact and durability of self-affirmation on health behaviors and the role of implementation intentions in enhancing the impact of self-affirmation.