A social norms approach to increasing vegetable consumption

Abstract

Social norms have been shown to influence food intake. Although social norms approaches have been adopted to reduce binge drinking, whether social normative information could be used to encourage ‘healthier’ food choices has not been examined. The present study investigated whether exposing participants to social norm messages about vegetable consumption increases choice and intake of vegetables as part of a meal. Sixty undergraduate students participated and were assigned to a social norms condition or a control condition. Dependent on condition, prior to selection of lunch from a buffet, participants were exposed to posters and flyers relating to social norms information about vegetables (‘students eat more vegetables than you’d think, the average student eats 3 portions of vegetables a day’) or health information about vegetables (‘eating vegetables is good for your health, eating 3 portions of vegetables a day protects against heart disease’). Cover stories were used to ensure participants were unaware the information exposure and food choice activities were related. Measures of habitual vegetable intake, BMI and restraint were taken after consumption of the lunch time meal. In habitually low consumers of vegetables, exposure to social norms information increased amount of vegetables consumed, compared to the control condition. In habitually high consumers of vegetables, no effect on vegetable intake was observed. These findings suggest a social norms approach to encourage ‘healthy’ food choices warrants further investigation.