Research on overeating assumes that pleasure must be sacrificed for the sake of good health. Contrary to this view, the authors show that focusing on sensory pleasure can make people happier and willing to spend more for less food, a triple win for public health, consumers, and companies alike. In five experiments, the authors ask U.S. and French adults and children to imagine vividly the taste, smell, and texture of three hedonic foods before choosing a portion size of another hedonic food. Compared with a control condition, this “multisensory imagery” intervention led hungry and nondieting people to choose smaller food portions, and they anticipated greater eating enjoyment and were willing to pay more for them. This occurred because multisensory imagery prompted participants to evaluate portions on the basis of expected sensory pleasure, which peaks with smaller portions, rather than hunger. In contrast, health-based interventions led people to choose a smaller portion than the one they expected to enjoy most—a hedonic cost for them and an economic cost for food marketers.

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Using archival and experimental data, we showed that vicarious defeats experienced by fans when their favorite football team loses lead them to consume less healthy food. On the Mondays following a Sunday National Football League (NFL) game, saturated-fat and food-calorie intake increase significantly in cities with losing teams, decrease in cities with winning teams, and remain at their usual levels in comparable cities without an NFL team or with an NFL team that did not play. These effects are greater in cities with the most committed fans, when the opponents are more evenly matched, and when the defeats are narrow. We found similar results when measuring the actual or intended food consumption of French soccer fans who had previously been asked to write about or watch highlights from victories or defeats of soccer teams. However, these unhealthy consequences of vicarious defeats disappear when supporters spontaneously self-affirm or are given the opportunity to do so.

Food producers and retailers throw away large amounts of perfectly edible produce that fail to meet beauty standards, contributing to the environmental issue of food waste. The authors examine why consumers discard aesthetically unattractive produce, and test a low-cost, easy-to-implement solution: emphasizing the produce’s aesthetic flaw through ‘ugly’ labeling (e.g., labeling cucumbers with cosmetic defects “Ugly Cucumbers” on store displays or advertising). Seven experiments, including two conducted in the field, demonstrate that ‘ugly’ labeling corrects for consumers’ biased expectations regarding key attributes of unattractive produce—particularly tastiness—and thus increases purchase likelihood. ‘Ugly’ labeling is most effective when associated with moderate (rather than steep) price discounts. Against managers’ intuition, it is also more effective than alternative labeling that does not exclusively point out the aesthetic flaw, such as ‘imperfect’ labeling. This research provides clear managerial recommendations on the labeling and the pricing of unattractive produce while addressing the issue of food waste.