People with obesity tend to be more receptive to food marketing, but when their weight decreases significantly, so does your responsiveness to marketing, as suggested a new study.
Testing the framing effect
For the study, which has been published in Journal of Consumer Psychology, the researchers followed three groups:
- patients with severe obesity before undergoing gastric bypass or other weight-loss surgeries (collectively known as bariatric surgery);
- people with obesity who did not undergo bariatric surgery;
- people who were not obese.
To measure their responsiveness to food marketing, the researchers evaluated what is called framing effect, that is, how branding, advertising and labeling 'frame' and therefore influence food evaluations and choices.
In one study, participants were asked to estimate the calorie content of well-known snacks and drinks, including some that marketers typically frame as healthy (i.e., apple juice, granola bars), and others that are not. are framed as healthy (i.e., soft drinks, chocolate bars).
The researchers found that everyone underestimated the calorie content of products that were framed as healthy, but the effect was more pronounced in people with obesity.
It is not clear whether people with obesity are less responsive to marketing due to physiological changes after surgery (hormonal, neurological changes or changes in gut microbiota) or due to people's desire to change their lifestyles and habits. Another possible reason is that people's tastes tend to change after bariatric surgery..
–
The news
Weight Loss Changes People's Responsiveness to Food-Related Marketing
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.