In as we speak’s world, our diets are sometimes filled with fat and sugars. Our historical intuition to crave calorie-rich meals, which as soon as helped us survive, now results in dangerous well being side-effects.
To counteract this, meals content material creators on social media have been attempting to push wholesome consuming and wholesome consuming content material.
However this is the kicker—this content material does not get a lot engagement. As an alternative, posts that present unhealthy, high-calorie meals get extra likes, shares and feedback. This recognition of junk meals on-line might tempt content material creators and algorithms to indicate extra of the identical, tilting our view of “regular” consuming habits in the direction of unhealthy selections. In the long term, this might gas the weight problems epidemic.
So, the problem is obvious: How can we make wholesome meals as click-worthy as their unhealthy counterparts?
In a current paper printed within the European Journal of Advertising, we needed to see if we may change individuals’s pure tendency to keep away from wholesome meals content material. How? By tweaking the best way they assume. May getting individuals to assume extra fastidiously earlier than they see meals posts make them have interaction extra with wholesome meals on social media?
Meals advertising and marketing on social media
Social media has grow to be a billboard for meals promoting. Meals corporations are in every single place on-line, however their focus is often on calorie-packed merchandise. They make these meals appear enjoyable and shareable, regardless that many people could be higher off seeing extra more healthy choices.
This mismatch between what meals corporations promote and what’s good for shoppers is evident. Posts with unhealthy meals get extra love and are remembered, seen and shared greater than posts that includes more healthy meals.
This on-line recognition of junk meals can then form our concepts of what is “regular” to eat and might sway our consuming habits, particularly in teams which are simply influenced by friends. So, if we will work out why this occurs, we may use that information to make wholesome meals shine on social media.
Why we love junk: An evolutionary story
Our brains have been wired over millennia to not solely crave high-calorie meals, however really feel good when merely seeing such meals—it is a survival trick from our previous.
Right this moment, this implies we naturally really feel good and get excited when seeing calorie-packed meals. This similar pleasure merely doesn’t happen when uncovered to low-calorie alternate options, which we frequently see as much less tasty, not as gratifying and sure not satiating.
What if we may change our minds to keep away from the biased selections we make once we depend on our emotions? The concept of utilizing a extra considerate mindset is a method that is been proven to work on different meals habits.
The potential right here is big: pondering extra thoughtfully and analytically may cut back our biases for relying extra on our emotions to make selections, and this may make more healthy, lower-calorie meals extra engaging, resulting in extra likes and shares on social media.
In our analysis, we took a take a look at how individuals react to social media content material about meals. We discovered that persons are often much less fascinated by posts about more healthy, lower-calorie meals, one thing that is been proven in earlier research.
We used movies from Tasty, a well-liked meals community, for our experiment.
In our experiment, individuals had been extra more likely to have interaction with a video about making a burger than a salad. However when individuals take the time to consider what meals they’re really participating with, they will respect the advantages of lower-calorie meals, doubtlessly main them to decide on more healthy choices.
Actions for a more healthy social media
As prior analysis has demonstrated, persons are naturally drawn to social media posts of unhealthy meals, leaving more healthy choices within the mud. The extra engagement these calorie-packed posts get, the extra comparable content material floods our feeds, making a cycle that may doubtlessly negatively have an effect on our real-life consuming habits.
However there’s hope! As our ongoing work demonstrates, there are many methods to steer the mindset in the direction of more healthy selections. Suppose disclaimers, well being star scores and even color-coded nudges.
Quick mindfulness workouts from packages like Noom or WeightWatchers may also assist us pause and assume earlier than we eat.
Our analysis can encourage dietitians, well being advocates, policymakers and content material creators to make use of this mindset magic after they’re designing their merchandise, companies or social media posts. This might result in extra engagement with more healthy meals content material on social media, making these more healthy messages journey additional.
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Meals for thought: How your mindset could make wholesome meals extra alluring on social media (2023, Could 25)
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