Weight Loss Changes People’s Response to Food Marketing: Research

Obesity rates have risen dramatically in the last 40 years in developed countries, and many believe that food marketing is at least partially responsible. But are obese people really vulnerable to food sales? If so, is it a permanent predisposition or can it change over time?

Obese people tend to be more sensitive, according to a new study by Dr. Yann Cornil (he / he / he), an assistant professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, and French researchers. Food marketing— However, if you lose a lot of weight, your response to marketing will also decrease.

For studies published in Consumer Psychology Journal, Researchers followed three groups: patients with severe obesity prior to gastric bypass or other weight loss surgery (collectively) Obesity surgery), And after 3 and 12 months. Obese people who have not undergone obesity surgery. And people who weren’t obese.

To measure their response to food marketing, researchers evaluated what is called the framing effect, how “frame” branding, advertising, and labeling affect food evaluation and selection.In one study, participants were asked to estimate Calorie content Some well-known snacks and drinks are usually considered healthy by marketers (apple juice, granola bar, etc.) and others are not considered healthy (soft drinks, chocolate bars, etc.).

Researchers have found that everyone underestimates the caloric content of snacks that are considered healthy, but the effect is more pronounced in obese people.

To further test the framing effect, researchers asked participants to virtually select some of the french fries from a fast-food restaurant and provided them with the nutritional information they needed to make informed decisions. The three options (71g, 117g, 154g) were always the same amount, but in some cases they were labeled small, medium and large, in other cases they were labeled the same as mini, small and medium. I did. Making a larger part looks more rational.

“We measured how sensitive people are to their framing, and whether it changes the choice of amount of french fries depending on how the parts are labeled,” obese people said. Dr. Cornil explains that he is likely to follow the labeling. Select the part labeled “Medium”, even if it is quite large, as it is not the actual information about the quantity.

Overall, researchers working closely with the Pitier Salpetriere Hospital in Paris found that obese people tended to respond to food sales, but lost considerable weight due to weight loss surgery. At that time, food sales fell sharply.

“Obesity people undergoing obesity surgery will become less responsive to marketing over time,” says Dr. Cornil. “And after 12 months, their response to marketing reaches the level of people with more medically recommended weights.”

Dr. Cornil said marketing for obese people due to post-surgery physiological changes (hormonal, neurological changes, changes in gut microbiota) or the desire to change people’s lifestyles and habits. It’s not clear if the reaction to is slowed down, he says. Another possible reason, he adds, is that people’s preferences tend to change after obesity surgery.

“The results clearly suggest a two-way effect between people’s weight status, psychology, and environmental responsiveness, including marketing,” says Dr. Cornil. “So it’s a complicated relationship.”

But if researchers found that they remained responsive to marketing after weight loss, it would have been a deep-seated predisposition.

“It means that people are always endowed with constant psychological characteristics that make them more responsive to marketing, which makes it very difficult to maintain a medically recommended weight,” he said. I will explain. “But one of the positive things is that after significant weight loss, people become less responsive to marketing, making it more sustainable to maintain a lower body mass index.”

The findings are particularly important, as Dr. Cornil has long assumed that marketing messages (especially high-calorie, low-nutrition foods) are responsible for at least some of the obesity epidemics. However, evidence that he had no clear experience.

“Our results provide important insights for regulator policymakers. food Marketing to curb obesity“Dr. Cornil says.