Unpalatable food for thought: Let marketing research guide effective public obesity interventions

Abstract

The prevalence of obesity is growing unabatedly despite the considerable efforts directed at the problem. Although abundant research has contributed to our understanding of the multifactorial causes of obesity, there is less attention to research that is relevant for guiding social marketers, public health professionals and policymakers in delivering public health interventions for countering and/or preventing the problem of obesity. This review offers six points for identifying and developing research relevant for guiding community-wide obesity interventions based on the idea that an applied marketing research perspective offers a better model for identifying effective interventions than more theoretical academic research. Specifically, the research guiding public health and social marketing interventions needs to (1) provide information on ultimate outcomes (weight, health and unintended consequences) more than intermediate outcomes (beliefs, attitudes and behaviour), (2) report on observations collected over the longer term, (3) use natural settings (even at a cost of internal validity), (4) endeavour to overcome observer-effects, (5) report effect sizes (rather than statistical significance) and (6) use moderator analyses to capture variation in how a population responds to interventions.

Navigating Through Nutrition Labeling Effects: A Second-Order Meta-Analysis

“…Although our research shows that different types of health label interventions can have an impact on food choices and consumption, healthy eating practices are more complex than a focus on “counting calories” (Holden et al 2020). Although we identify a significant effect of nutrition labels, the overall size of the effect for the different label types is relatively small across all the reported results.…”

“…Additionally, emerging CDC data show that obesity levels, exacerbated by extended sedentary periods due to the physical lockdown of workplaces and schools, are at record highs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2022). Although marketers have traditionally been considered a key contributor to the prevalence of obesity (Kozup, Creyer, and Burton 2003; Wansink and Chandon 2006), there is capacity for marketing practice to reduce this problem (Holden et al 2020). In response, recent attention has turned to redesigning food product and menu nutritional labeling to provide consumers with easily interpretable nutritional information to assist them in making healthier food choices 1 (Sinclair, Cooper, and Mansfield 2014; Zlatevska, Neumann, and Dubelaar 2018).…”