Promoting Resilience to Food Commercials Decreases Susceptibility to Unhealthy Food Decision-Making

Oh-Ryeong Ha, Haley J Killian, Ann M Davis, Seung-Lark Lim, Jared M Bruce, Jarrod J Sotos, Samuel C Nelson, Amanda S Bruce, Oh-Ryeong Ha, Haley J Killian, Ann M Davis, Seung-Lark Lim, Jared M Bruce, Jarrod J Sotos, Samuel C Nelson, Amanda S Bruce

Abstract

Children are vulnerable to adverse effects of food advertising. Food commercials are known to increase hedonic, taste-oriented, and unhealthy food decisions. The current study examined how promoting resilience to food commercials impacted susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making in children. To promote resilience to food commercials, we utilized the food advertising literacy intervention intended to enhance cognitive skepticism and critical thinking, and decrease positive attitudes toward commercials. Thirty-six children aged 8-12 years were randomly assigned to the food advertising literacy intervention or the control condition. Eighteen children received four brief intervention sessions via video over 1 week period. In each session, children watched six food commercials with interspersed embedded intervention narratives. While watching food commercials and narratives, children were encouraged to speak their thoughts out loud spontaneously ("think-aloud"), which provided children's attitudes toward commercials. Eighteen children in the control condition had four control sessions over 1 week, and watched the same food commercials without intervention narratives while thinking aloud. The first and last sessions were held in the laboratory, and the second and third sessions were held at the children's homes. Susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making was indicated by the decision weights of taste attributes, taste perception, food choices, ad libitum snacking, and cognitive and affective attitudes toward food commercials. As hypothesized, the intervention successfully decreased susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making evidenced by reduced decision weights of the taste in food decisions, decreased tasty perception of unhealthy foods, and increased cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward food commercials. In addition, as children's opinions assimilated to intervention narratives, their cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward commercials increased. The aforementioned results were not shown in the control condition. However, this brief intervention was not enough to change actual food choices or food consumption. Results of this study suggest that promoting resilience to food commercials by enhancing cognitive skepticism and critical thinking effectively reduced children's susceptibility to unhealthy food-decision making.

Keywords: advertising literacy; children; eating behavior; food commercials; food decisions; obesity.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2020 Ha, Killian, Davis, Lim, Bruce, Sotos, Nelson and Bruce.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Intervention and control video stimuli. A video for the intervention condition was consisted of six food commercials with embedded 12 factual and evaluative narratives. Each food commercial was followed by two narratives. Narrative statements in colored text moved side-to-side and was accompanied by a female voice. A video for the control session was consisted of the same six food commercials, but no narratives were delivered.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Food ratings and choice tasks. Children rated food healthiness and taste of 60 food items (30 unhealthy and 30 healthy) using four-point scales (health: very unhealthy, unhealthy, healthy, very healthy; taste: very bad, bad, good, very good). Then, children made food decisions on the same 60 food items using a four-point scale (strong no, no, yes, strong yes). Each task began with a task cue. When children pressed a space bar, a colored food image was presented on a white background in the center of the screen that remained on the screen until children made a response, and options of a four-point scale were shown at the bottom. When children chose an option, the selected option was briefly highlighted in yellow to provide visual feedback of their selection. A fixation point was presented for 1 s before the beginning the next trial. The order of food items was randomized in each task, and the order of health and taste ratings were counterbalanced across children.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean taste beta coefficients in the intervention and control groups. The mean regression beta coefficients of taste attributes was significantly decreased between pre- and post-intervention sessions in the intervention group (*p = 0.046). There was no significant change of the mean regression beta coefficients of taste attributes between pre- and post-control sessions in the control group.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mean percentages of negative cognitive and affective responses toward commercials. The mean percentage of relative negative cognitive toward commercials was significantly increased between the first and last sessions in the intervention group (*p = 0.016), while no significant change was found in the control group. There were no significant changes of relative negative affective responses in both groups.

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