Promote health or prevent disease? The effects of health-related advertising on eating behavior intention.

Chia-Yen Lin

doi:10.3390/ijerph120403517

Abstract

The health medical costs of colorectal cancer are increasingly higher in Taiwan. The National Health Insurance Administration (NHI) and The Health Promotion Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) in Taiwan encourage individuals to adopt an earnest approach to healthy behavior through advocacy advertising. However, the number of colorectal cancer patients continues to increase annually. Our study explored the effects of health-related advertisements (ads) on healthy behavior intentions as influenced by regulatory focus theory (RFT) and construal level theory (CLT). We conducted an experiment with different public health advocacy ads. A 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) × 2 (temporal distance: one month vs. one year) × 2 (graphics-text ratio: more pictures and less text vs. fewer pictures and more text) three-factor experiment was adopted. The multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) results revealed that ads with higher construal levels (i.e., more text) had greater effects with a promotion-oriented regulatory focus. However, no significant differences were found in either attitude toward the ads or behavior intention when the regulatory focus was prevention. In addition, according to the young testers and those who were psychologically distant from colorectal cancer, different temporal distances and different construal levels had no statistically significantly effects on attitudes toward advertising or on behavior intentions. The results revealed that viewers found the information easier to understand when the ads triggered the regulatory focuses of the viewers and applied an appropriate graphics-text ratio, which resulted in favorable health-related advertising effectiveness. Thus, we provide two suggestions regarding the use of health-related advertising for MOHW in the future.

Highlights

Researchers believe that 30% of the causes of cancer are dietary, and the instances of cancer in Western societies are thought to be related to Westerners’ customary intake of animal products, fats, and carbohydrates [1]
According to the National Health Insurance Administration (NHI), colorectal cancer is a catastrophic illness in Taiwan, and the government has been paying for the treatment of this illness increasingly often in recent years
To urge the public to improve its health by eating a healthy diet and to advocate the idea that colorectal cancer can be effectively prevented by reducing potential dietary risk factors, a number of colorectal cancer prevention and cure associations currently use advertisements as a means of communication (The Colorectal Cancer Care Network, The Health Promotion Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), The Taiwan Colorectal Cancer Alliance, etc.)

Summary

Introduction

Researchers believe that 30% of the causes of cancer are dietary, and the instances of cancer in Western societies are thought to be related to Westerners’ customary intake of animal products, fats, and carbohydrates [1]. In a review of the colorectal cancer-related advertisements produced by the government [4], we found that the information focused on “colorectal cancer screening (or monitoring)” or “colorectal cancer warning signs” and that the audience targeted by these ads was the elderly We infer that this focus is why the number of patients is increasing annually and the average age of patients is younger than it was previously. It follows that the increasing incidence of colorectal cancer in Taiwan may be closely related to the fact that government’s advertising content has not had the expected effect

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