Too good to be true: Dose insensitivity and stereotypical thinking of foods’ capacity to promote weight gain

Abstract

It has been well documented that the general public holds many mistaken beliefs about foods and their roles in weight gain and health/disease. For example, foods that are perceived as bad for health (e.g., 3 slices of bacon; 109 calories) are typically judged to promote significantly more weight gain than more reputable foods (e.g., a large raisin bran muffin; 460 calories), even if the “bad” food contains far fewer calories than the “good” food. The current study was unique in that participants were provided not only names of snacks but also their caloric amounts and then asked to judge each snack’s capacity to promote weight gain. Results indicated that, despite the caloric information presented, respondents rated “bad” foods as weight promoters (compared to “good” foods) and only fat content (not energy density or fiber and sugar content) primarily predicted which foods would be judged to promote weight gain. It appears that “high fat” may be a synonymous with “bad” for many people or that dietary fat is perceived to have a far greater impact on body weight than is justified by the nutrient’s caloric content. In either case, it appears that a potentially harmful message has been assimilated by the general public.