Tasty Intuition Research Articles

The Healthy = Tasty Intuition Seems to Prevail in Japan

The Healthy = Tasty Intuition Seems to Prevail in Japan

The visual analogue scale as a child-friendly measure of the unhealthy = tasty intuition

Worldwide, obesity is a growing concern. The implicit belief that healthiness and tastiness in food are inversely related (the Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition or UTI) decreases healthy food consumption and increases the risk of obesity. Since also childhood obesity has increased at an alarming rate and a large component of adult obesity is established during childhood, questions about children's own food beliefs and preferences are important. However, methods currently used to assess the UTI are either unvalidated Likert scales or implicit measures that are time intensive and too complex to be used for children. Two studies presented here offer an alternative measurement - the simple visual analogue scale. The findings show that this measure is more effective in predicting dietary quality in adults and the frequency of healthy food consumption in children compared to more traditional measures. This simple and effective tool could be used by academics and health practitioners alike to better understand children's food beliefs at an early age, which is a critical step when addressing the increasing obesity problem.

Intergenerational Effects of Lay Beliefs: How Parents’ Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition Influences Their Children’s Food Consumption and Body Mass Index

Abstract Childhood obesity is a major problem worldwide and a key contributor to adult obesity. This research explores caregivers’ lay beliefs and food parenting practices, and their long-term, intergenerational effects on their children’s food consumption and physiology. First, a cross-cultural survey reveals the link between parents’ belief that tasty food is unhealthy and the use of extrinsic rewards to encourage their children to eat healthily, with adverse downstream consequences for the children’s body mass indices. Next, two studies demonstrate the mechanism by which this strategy backfires, as providing extrinsic rewards ironically increases children’s unhealthy food consumption, which in turn leads to an increase in their body mass indices. The final two studies demonstrate potential solutions for public policy and health practitioners, either by manipulating “unhealthy = tasty” beliefs directly or by breaking the association between these food beliefs and the use of extrinsic rewards through an intervention.

Effects of the FDA's sodium reduction strategy in the U.S. market for chip products

Recent policy proposals have favored product reformulation to reduce excess sodium intake, a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published draft guidance with target values to encourage sodium reduction in processed food, spawning widespread discussion. Points of uncertainty are expected consumer responses to and market outcomes from sodium reductions affecting industry incentives and profits. The objective of this article is to simulate the effects of two reduction scenarios on sales, revenue, and total sodium intake, with a focus on industry-wide versus market-leader-only reformulation. Using a nested-logit demand framework, we derive product-level demand estimates and explicit “sodium elasticities” in the highly differentiated U.S. market for potato and tortilla chips and simulate two sodium reduction scenarios based on the FDA's current proposal. Key findings of our simulations are that a 10% reduction in sodium content for products exceeding the FDA's target sales-weighted mean would lead to an overall decrease in sodium intake of more than 7%. Adverse effects on reformulating manufacturer sales and revenues are ambiguous and vary by product category. Our results only partly support the “unhealthy = tasty intuition” hypothesis in the literature, indicating that the adverse effects of product reformulation on demand and industry benefits are not as guaranteed as often portrayed.

Healthy is (not) tasty? Implicit and explicit associations between food healthiness and tastiness in primary school-aged children and parents with a lower socioeconomic position

Many people implicitly (automatically) believe that unhealthy foods are tastier than healthy foods, even when they explicitly (deliberately) report that they don’t. It is unclear whether this ‘unhealthy = tasty intuition’ is already present in childhood. Children from families with a lower socioeconomic position (SEP) consume poorer diets than children from families with a higher SEP. Paradoxically, populations with a lower SEP are underrepresented in research and least reached by lifestyle interventions. This study explored implicit and explicit associations between healthiness, tastiness and liking of foods in primary school-aged children and parents with a lower SEP.These associations and an estimate of dietary intake were assessed with implicit association tests and paper-and-pencil questionnaires, developed and adapted specifically for this target group. Participants were recruited at Dutch food banks.Results of 37 parent-child dyads indicated that children and parents implicitly associated healthy foods and tastiness more strongly with each other than healthy foods and not tasty (D = −0.19, p = .03 and D = −0.46, p < .001, respectively). Explicitly, parents showed similar results, while children rated pictures of unhealthy foods as tastier than pictures of healthy foods.Following the discrepancy between our hypotheses, results, and more unhealthy eating habits that often prevail in families with a lower SEP, potential explanations are discussed. We address the possibility that an internalised social norm was exposed, rather than an intrinsic belief. We propose that this research calls for in-depth qualitative research on food-related preferences and norms in the everyday life of low SEP families.

Factors Influencing Purchase Intention for Low-Sodium and Low-Sugar Products.

As sodium and sugar intake in South Korea exceed recommended levels, the government and food industry have been attempting to reduce the amount of sodium and sugar in the food products. In line with these efforts, this study sought to examine how the purchase intention for low-sodium/low-sugar products vary based on consumers’ previous choices of low-sodium/low-sugar products and other consumer-related factors. For this study, two online survey-based experiments were conducted: one using soy sauce to represent a sodium-based product and the other using yogurt to represent a sugar-based product. The significant variables that influenced the purchase intention for both were the consumers’ previous low-sodium/low-sugar product choices and their propensity for food neophobia. Consumers who had previously selected regular products showed a lower intention to purchase low-sodium soy sauce or low-sugar yogurt. In addition, those who had a strong tendency toward food neophobia also had a significantly lower purchase intention for these products. Moreover, the lower the consumer′s unhealthy = tasty intuition (UTI), the higher the purchase intention for the low-sodium soy sauce, but UTI did not act as a significant variable for the low-sugar yogurt. These results demonstrate that government interventions for low-sodium products and low-sugar products should be differentiated.

To look tasty, let's show the ingredients! Effects of ingredient images on implicit tasty–healthy associations for packaged products

This study investigates the effect of ingredient images on implicit tasty–healthy associations for packaged products. An implicit association test (IAT) with 106 respondents reveals the impact of repeating ingredient images on the implicit healthy = tasty intuition; fewer ingredient images are linked to a stronger intuition. This study also considers explicit product packaging preferences and the number of ingredient images depicted. The implicit intuitions affect explicit preferences, such that packages depicting few ingredient images are preferred over those depicting many ingredient images for healthy products, but no significant effects emerge for unhealthy products.

The unhealthy = tasty belief is associated with BMI through reduced consumption of vegetables: A cross-national and mediational analysis

Obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of modern times and its prevalence is increasing worldwide. With food so abundant in developed countries, many people face a conflict between desires for short-term taste and the goal of long-term health, multiple times a day. Recent research suggests that consumers often resolve these conflicts based on their lay beliefs about the healthiness and tastiness of food. Consequently, such lay beliefs can play critical roles not just in food choice but also weight gain. In this research, we show, across six countries and through mediation analysis, that adults who believe that tasty food is unhealthy (the Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition, or “UTI”; Raghunathan, Naylor, & Hoyer 2006) are less likely to consume healthy food, and thereby have a higher body mass index (BMI). In Study 1, we conducted a cross-sectional survey in five countries (Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, and the UK), and found that greater strength of belief in UTI was associated with higher BMI, and this relationship was mediated by lower consumption of fruits and vegetables. The observed patterns largely converged across the sampled Western and Asian-Pacific countries. In Study 2, we teased apart the mediating role of vegetable versus fruit consumption and also addressed the issue of reversed causality by predicting BMI with a measure of UTI belief taken 30 months previously. We found that vegetable consumption, but not fruit consumption, mediated the association between UTI belief and BMI. Our findings contribute to the literature by showing how lay beliefs about food can have pervasive and long-lasting effects on dietary practices and health worldwide. Implications for public policy and health practitioners are discussed.

Sugar labeling: How numerical information of sugar content influences healthiness and tastiness expectations.

Overconsumption of highly sugary foods contributes to increases in obesity and diabetes in our population, and initiatives are issued worldwide to reduce sugar content in food products. However, it is unclear how the presentation of reduced sugar content on food packages affects taste expectations of consumers. Based on the learned knowledge about negative health effects of sugar and the common belief that unhealthy food tastes better than healthy food, consumers might conclude that lower sugar levels are associated with higher healthiness and lower tastiness. Addressing this concern, we examined how quantitative information about sugar content without any verbal description influences consumers’ health and taste expectations of dairy desserts. We asked participants to indicate the expected healthiness and tastiness of randomly sampled dairy desserts, while varying systematically the quantitative sugar information provided in a label presented with the desserts (numerical sugar level in grams per 100 grams of product: low vs. original vs. high). We assumed that quantitative sugar content is not equally associated with healthiness and tastiness of products and that numerical information about sugar content informs health more than taste expectations. Therefore, we predicted that consumers expect higher healthiness, but not to the same degree lower tastiness for products with reduced sugar contented compared to products with higher sugar content. The results of the present study are in line with this hypothesis. We found that consumers expected desserts with less sugar to be healthier than desserts with higher levels of sugar. The experimentally varied sugar levels did not affect the tastiness expectations. Notably, consumers did not follow the unhealthy = tasty intuition and did not devaluate the tastiness of desserts because of heightened healthiness expectations. Our findings suggest that sole numerical information about sugar content—an important nutritional value—is more diagnostic in the construction of healthiness rather than tastiness expectations of food products.

Practicing the (un)healthy = tasty intuition: Toward an ecological view of the relationship between health and taste in consumer judgments

Recent research has provided some first indications that not all consumers apply an unhealthy = more tasty heuristic when judging the healthiness and tastiness of food products. To address the question of whether and when consumers perceive food in accordance with unhealthy = tasty or healthy = tasty views, we conducted two studies in two European countries with consumers who were stratified along important demographic characteristics. In both studies, we presented participants with a random sample of real food products from two product categories available at a large supermarket chain. We hypothesized a positive relationship between subjective healthiness and tastiness judgments, which we assume has its bases in an evolutionary mechanism, personal consumption experiences and consumption trends. Our results consistently revealed the expected positive association between subjective healthiness and tastiness judgments across participants, countries, and products. However, the magnitude and valence of this relationship varied across product categories and depended on differences in the extents to which consumers believed in the unhealthy = tasty intuition, were interested in health, and exhibited a food pleasure orientation.

Cross-national investigation of the drivers of obesity: Re-assessment of past findings and avenues for the future

In this paper we question whether prior cross-national differences in food attitudes still exist and if so, to what extent. Due to societal evolutions such as sedentarism and globalization, international variations in food attitudes may not be as pronounced as currently believed. A cross-sectional web-based survey was carried out in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Belgium. A total of 2167 respondents (52% women; mean age = 39.0 years, SD = 11.4) participated. To successfully combat obesity, a joint approach focusing on food choice and physical activity is required; therefore we included behavioral measures by means of choice tasks for these two important drivers. Further, the extent to which respondents subscribe to the unhealthy = tasty intuition, together with health and taste interest were investigated. Socio-demographic information and self-reported heights and weights were also incorporated. Logistic regressions were fitted with weight status as the dependent variable and the attitudinal and behavioral measures as independent variables. Our findings indicate that having a higher interest in healthy eating decreases the chance of being overweight (odds = 0.88) and believing that unhealthy food is tasty significantly increases the chance of being obese by 1.18 times. Overall, we find that food attitudes have largely converged across the countries we investigated.

How to Combat the Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition: The Influencing Role of Health Consciousness

The goal conflict between short-term indulgence and long-term health considerations is at the heart of unhealthy food choices and is thus a key contributor to increased adiposity prevalence. Policy makers often attempt to promote healthy eating behaviors by raising consumers' health consciousness. Given that previous health campaigns have fallen short of expectations, this article examines the potential of health consciousness to resolve the so-called unhealthy = tasty intuition (UTI). Study 1 explores whether health consciousness attenuates belief in the UTI and its detrimental consequences for food choice and body mass. Study 2 applies the Implicit Association Test to disentangle the UTI's implicit and explicit processes. The results show that health consciousness operates only through cognitively controlled processes. Using real food products, Study 3 analyzes how health consciousness colors the influence of composition and labeling on tastiness and healthiness perceptions. The studies jointly demonstrate that the UTI partly works implicitly and independently of health consciousness. Thus, the obesity epidemic should be addressed through concerted actions that include policy makers' health communications and the food industry's product development.

Emotional Ability Training and Mindful Eating

Consumers are often mindless eaters. This research provides a framework for how consumers can become more mindful of their food choices. To do so, the authors develop an ability-based training program to strengthen people's ability to focus on goal-relevant emotional information. They demonstrate not only that emotional ability (EA) is trainable and that food choices can be enhanced (Study 1) but also that EA training improves food choices beyond a nutrition knowledge training program (Study 2). In Study 3, the authors test a conceptual model and find that EA training increases goal-relevant emotional thoughts and reduces reliance on the unhealthy = tasty intuition. Both factors mediate mindful eating effects. Last, Study 4 demonstrates the long-term benefits of EA training by showing that emotionally trained people lose more weight in a three-month period than a control group and a nutrition knowledge training group. Together, these findings suggest that consumers can gain control of their food choices through the enhancement of EA. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for policy officials, health care professionals, and marketers.

How to Use Health and Nutrition–Related Claims Correctly on Food Advertising: Comparison of Benefit-Seeking, Risk-Avoidance, and Taste Appeals on Different Food Categories

This study applies the concepts of health halos and unhealthy = tasty intuition to examine how the different health and nutrition–related (HNR) appeal types interact with different food product types compared with taste claims. The experiment investigated the impact of benefit-seeking and risk-avoidance HNR appeals compared with that of taste appeals on different food types. The authors found that although respondents evaluated food ads with the two HNR appeals as less risky/more beneficial and healthier than food ads with a taste claim, the respondents showed better ad-related evaluations on the HNR appeals for perceivably healthy food and on taste appeal for perceivably unhealthy food. The findings provide several theoretical and practical implications for health food marketing and public health policy.

The Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition and Its Effects on Taste Inferences, Enjoyment, and Choice of Food Products

Across four experiments, the authors find that when information pertaining to the assessment of the healthiness of food items is provided, the less healthy the item is portrayed to be, (1) the better is its inferred taste, (2) the more it is enjoyed during actual consumption, and (3) the greater is the preference for it in choice tasks when a hedonic goal is more (versus less) salient. The authors obtain these effects both among consumers who report that they believe that healthiness and tastiness are negatively correlated and, to a lesser degree, among those who do not report such a belief. The authors also provide evidence that the association between the concepts of “unhealthy” and “tasty” operates at an implicit level. The authors discuss possibilities for controlling the effect of the unhealthy = tasty intuition (and its potential for causing negative health consequences), including controlling the volume of unhealthy but tasty food eaten, changing unhealthy foods to make them less unhealthy but still tasty, and providing consumers with better information about what constitutes “healthy.”