CBC News
Marketers use package design, shelf placement tie-ins and temporary price cuts to lure grocery customers. Now researchers are exploiting that strategy to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables.
Nudging people towards making healthier choices without resorting to bans could work, but the effectiveness of the approach isn't certain, a medical journal says.Wednesday's issue of the British Medical Journal includes an analysis and editorial that judge nudging — the concept of moving people towards healthier behaviour without banning choices or using financial incentives. The idea is based on behavioural economics and social psychology theory on how environments shape the way we act.Nudges aim to make eating more nutritious foods like fruit or getting more physical activity our default position. The seemingly simple, low-cost solution has captured the imagination of the public, researchers and policy makers, Theresa Marteau, director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at Cambridge University in the UK and her co-authors said.
"Nudging certainly works," Marteau and co-authors wrote.
"Shaping environments to cue certain behaviours is extremely effective, unfortunately often to the detriment of our health. The ready availability of foods that are packaged, presented, and engineered to stimulate our automatic, affective system has led us to consume more than we need — consumption that is further primed by advertising."
The researchers explored whether nudging can also be used to cue healthy behaviours and improve them.
In one study they cited, supermarkets put yellow duct tape across the width of supermarket carts with a sign requesting that shoppers place fruits and vegetables in half of the cart. The result? Customers bought double the number of fruits and veggies as before.
The shopping cart idea makes sense, said David Dunne, a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, who commented on the research to CBC News. He is an advertising consultant to both the private and public sector.
Fruits and veggies
Confronting people or shaming their unhealthy behaviour is an uphill struggle in marketing. But encouraging healthy behaviour by playing up the taste of delicious fruits like mandarin oranges in an advertising campaign, combined with promotional placements in stores during the holiday season, is a better strategy, Dunne said.
"A very good example actually would be success over the few years of baby carrots," Dunne said.
"If I'm going to have to chop and peel carrots every time I want to take them in for my lunch then I'm going to be less interested. This is something that just makes it easy for the consumer. It's convenient and they're usually prominently displayed in the vegetable section of the store."
Supermarkets already fund research into how to direct consumers' interest, such as placing sweets at children's eye level at check out counters. Exploiting that strategy, one experiment placed fruit at the cash register of school cafeterias. The amount of fruit that school children then bought increased by 70 per cent, the researchers said.
Supermarkets already fund research into how to direct consumers' interest, such as placing sweets at children's eye level at check out counters. Exploiting that strategy, one experiment placed fruit at the cash register of school cafeterias. The amount of fruit that school children then bought increased by 70 per cent, the researchers said.
Marteau's team said more research is needed to determine how well nudging works and its cost effectiveness, particularly without legislation to limit the powerful unhealthy nudges shaped by industry.
A journal editorial accompanying the paper notes nudging is based on paternalistic principle that it's legitimate to influence people's behaviour to make their lives healthier.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2011/01/26/nudge-healthy-behaviour-diet.html#ixzz1CFA1kP70
Marketers use package design, shelf placement tie-ins and temporary price cuts to lure grocery customers. Now researchers are exploiting that strategy to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables.
Nudging people towards making healthier choices without resorting to bans could work, but the effectiveness of the approach isn't certain, a medical journal says.Wednesday's issue of the British Medical Journal includes an analysis and editorial that judge nudging — the concept of moving people towards healthier behaviour without banning choices or using financial incentives. The idea is based on behavioural economics and social psychology theory on how environments shape the way we act.Nudges aim to make eating more nutritious foods like fruit or getting more physical activity our default position. The seemingly simple, low-cost solution has captured the imagination of the public, researchers and policy makers, Theresa Marteau, director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at Cambridge University in the UK and her co-authors said.
"Nudging certainly works," Marteau and co-authors wrote.
"Shaping environments to cue certain behaviours is extremely effective, unfortunately often to the detriment of our health. The ready availability of foods that are packaged, presented, and engineered to stimulate our automatic, affective system has led us to consume more than we need — consumption that is further primed by advertising."
The researchers explored whether nudging can also be used to cue healthy behaviours and improve them.
In one study they cited, supermarkets put yellow duct tape across the width of supermarket carts with a sign requesting that shoppers place fruits and vegetables in half of the cart. The result? Customers bought double the number of fruits and veggies as before.
The shopping cart idea makes sense, said David Dunne, a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, who commented on the research to CBC News. He is an advertising consultant to both the private and public sector.
Fruits and veggies
Confronting people or shaming their unhealthy behaviour is an uphill struggle in marketing. But encouraging healthy behaviour by playing up the taste of delicious fruits like mandarin oranges in an advertising campaign, combined with promotional placements in stores during the holiday season, is a better strategy, Dunne said.
"A very good example actually would be success over the few years of baby carrots," Dunne said.
"If I'm going to have to chop and peel carrots every time I want to take them in for my lunch then I'm going to be less interested. This is something that just makes it easy for the consumer. It's convenient and they're usually prominently displayed in the vegetable section of the store."
Supermarkets already fund research into how to direct consumers' interest, such as placing sweets at children's eye level at check out counters. Exploiting that strategy, one experiment placed fruit at the cash register of school cafeterias. The amount of fruit that school children then bought increased by 70 per cent, the researchers said.
Supermarkets already fund research into how to direct consumers' interest, such as placing sweets at children's eye level at check out counters. Exploiting that strategy, one experiment placed fruit at the cash register of school cafeterias. The amount of fruit that school children then bought increased by 70 per cent, the researchers said.
Marteau's team said more research is needed to determine how well nudging works and its cost effectiveness, particularly without legislation to limit the powerful unhealthy nudges shaped by industry.
A journal editorial accompanying the paper notes nudging is based on paternalistic principle that it's legitimate to influence people's behaviour to make their lives healthier.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2011/01/26/nudge-healthy-behaviour-diet.html#ixzz1CFA1kP70
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