How information about what is "healthy" versus "unhealthy" impacts children's consumption of otherwise identical foods

Abstract

Can brief messages about health influence children’s consumption of identical foods? Across a series of studies, we manipulated children’s consumption of identical foods (fruit sauces) by pairing those foods with brief messages about each food’s health status. What initially appeared to be a preference for foods described as healthy among 5–6-year-old children (Studies 1–2) actually reflected a preference for alternatives to foods described as unhealthy (Studies 3–5), including comparison foods that were described with negative or neutral content. Although the two foods on each trial were identical, children consistently ate more of the alternative to a food described as unhealthy. Similar effects were observed among 8–9-year-old children (Study 6). These results demonstrate that children’s eating behavior is affected by messages they receive from other people, including messages about health. Further, these studies reveal basic psychological mechanisms that contribute to children’s choices among foods, which could lead to effective interventions in the food domain.

Children’s implicit food cognition: Developing a food Implicit Association Test

“…Parents of children in this sample reported that their children also typically ate the vegetables depicted in this study more often per week than they ate the desserts. This result could reflect several tendencies, including increasing health knowledge in recent years among adults (Guthrie et al, 1999;Rehm et al, 2016) which may be directly or indirectly transmitted to children, children's understanding that unhealthy foods should be avoided (DeJesus, Du, et al, 2019), and general positivity biases (observed in the domain of personality trait attribution) in early childhood (Boseovski, 2010). These findings suggest that children may receive positive messages about vegetables in their food environment or be rewarded for eating vegetables, which may be reflected in their food IAT d-scores.…”

“…This also allowed us to examine whether children's food cognition mirrors IAT findings in the area of social cognition, in which children's implicit associations are consistent across ages whereas their explicit associations differ across ages . In addition, although children's earliest food choices are primarily driven by taste, children's later food choices are also influenced by other factors, including knowledge of food healthfulness and social desirability among their peers (Birch, 1979(Birch, , 1980DeJesus, Du, et al, 2019;DeJesus et al, 2018).…”

“…Although children are capable of correctly classifying foods as "healthy" or "junky" by age 3 (Nguyen, 2007) and can learn more complex information about nutrition in the preschool and early school years Nguyen et al, 2011;, they nonetheless often reject healthy foods (Maimaran & Fishbach, 2014;Wardle & Huon, 2000). At the same time, children seem to have some understanding that unhealthy foods should be avoided: When given the choice between two foods, one described as "healthy" and one described as "unhealthy," 5-and 6-year-old children tended to eat more of the "healthy" food (DeJesus, Du, et al, 2019). This pattern could suggest a preference for healthy foods, an avoidance of unhealthy foods, or both.…”

“…Studies with child participants (rather than parents reporting on their child's behalf) have assessed children's food healthfulness knowledge by asking children to sort foods as "healthy" versus "unhealthy or "junky," by asking children to explain why they think a particular food is healthy (and analyzing the content of children's explanations), and by describing foods using different health messages and measuring children's food choices and intake (DeJesus, Du, et al, 2019;Maimaran & Fishbach, 2014;Nguyen, 2007;Nguyen et al, 2011;. Many of these studies are conducted in school settings, so their parents are not present.…”

“…Nonetheless, in these settings children are still under the authority of adults (e.g., their teachers) and being asked questions by adult researchers. Some studies attempt to reduce social pressure in their design, such directing the experimenter to not directly face children while children are eating, having adults who provide messages about foods leave the room while children are eating, or having other children provide messages about foods (DeJesus, Du, et al, 2019), yet the extent to which these efforts actually reduce social pressure to make food choices that would be socially desirable to adults is unclear.…”