Judgements of food healthfulness: food name stereotypes in adults over age 25

Abstract

Previous findings indicated that college-aged women (compared to men) were more likely to use stereotypes when judging food names by their healthfulness. The present study is a replication and extension of an earlier study, using older (i.e. not traditional college age) participants (Mage=46). In general, men had fewer and smaller discrepancies between their evaluations of food names and descriptions than did females. As previously found, gender differences occurred for evaluations of food names rather than nutrient descriptions, with women using less information than men. The stereotype women used when judging food names involved negative attitudes toward dietary fat, whereas men appeared to take account of vitamin and mineral content in addition to fat. The older sample was generally more accurate (i.e. had smaller discrepancies when judging food names and descriptions) than were the previous sample of younger adults. Also, the current sample of older adults used more characteristics when evaluating food healthfulness of descriptions than did the previous sample of college students, indicating a more complex strategy of evaluating healthfulness of food descriptions.