Appetitive drives for ultra-processed food products and the ability of text warnings to counteract consumption predispositions

Abstract

Objective: The present study aimed to (i) assess the appetitive drives evoked by the visual cues of ultra-processed food and drink products and (ii) investigate whether text warnings reduce appetitive drives and consumers' reported intentions to eat or drink ultra-processed products.

Design: In Study I, a well-established psychometric tool was applied to estimate the appetitive drives associated with ultra-processed products using sixty-four image representations. Sixteen product types with four exemplars of a given product were included. Pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) served as controls. The two exemplars of each product type rated as more appetitive were selected for investigation in the second study. Study II assessed the impact of textual warnings on the appetitive drive towards these thirty-two exemplars. Each participant was exposed to two picture exemplars of the same product type preceded by a text warning or a control text. After viewing each displayed picture, the participants reported their emotional reactions and their intention to consume the product.

Setting: Controlled classroom experiments SUBJECTS: Undergraduate students (Study I: n 215, 135 women; Study II: n 98, 52 women).

Results: In Study I, the pictures of ultra-processed products prompted an appetitive motivation associated with the products' nutritional content. In Study II, text warnings were effective in reducing the intention to consume and the appetitive drive evoked by ultra-processed products.

Conclusions: This research provides initial evidence favouring the use of text warnings as a public policy tool to curb the powerful influence of highly appetitive ultra-processed food cues.

Keywords: Emotion; Self-Assessment Manikin; Ultra-processed food; Unhealthy diet; Warning labels.

Fig. 1

(colour online) Pictures of ultra-processed food and drink products. Illustration of the thirty-two pictures of ultra-processed products selected from Study I. Each product type was represented with two picture exemplars (picture pair). The product types were divided into four health risk categories, i.e. salt, sugar, trans-fat and saturated fat. Each product type had a high content of at least the component (sugar, salt, trans-fat, saturated fat) that represents the category to which it belongs. The mean and sd values of the valence (V) and the arousal (A) and the vector magnitudes of the appetitive drive (AD) are noted below each picture

Fig. 2

Affective space. Illustration of the bidimensional space defined by SAM valence (y-axis) and arousal (x-axis) ratings. Each point in the plot represents an IAPS (control) picture (○) or a picture of an ultra-processed food or drink product (●) as a function of its mean hedonic valence and arousal ratings. (SAM, Self-Assessment Manikin; IAPS, International Affective Picture System)

Fig. 3

The correlation between nutritional quality (FSA score) and appetitive drive. The worse the ultra-processed products’ nutritional content, the stronger the evoked emotional response (r=0·52, P<0·05). (FSA, Foods Standards Agency)

Fig. 4

(colour online) Schematic representation of the sequence of events in a trial. The experimental session was divided into two blocks. During each session sixteen pictures of ultra-processed products were preceded by control texts (block 1), and the other sixteen pictures from the same products were preceded by warning texts (block 2). The pictures presented for each condition (control or warning) were counterbalanced between the participants. Then, for each picture (the wafer cookie 1, for example), the mean ratings for the warning condition were obtained from one group of participants, and the ratings for the control condition were obtained from the other group of participants

Fig. 5

Distribution of the pictures’ ratings during the warning and control conditions on a bidimensional affective space. Valence is depicted on the y-axis and arousal on the x-axis. Each point in the graph represents a picture. The pictures preceded by text warnings are shown as (●) and the same pictures preceded by control texts are shown as (○)