Food Literacy How Do Communications and Marketing Impact Consumer Knowledge, Skills, and Behavior? Workshop Summary (2016) / Chapter Skim
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2 Session 2: Food Literacy and Communications Conveying Scientific Information Concerning Food Safety, Nutrition, or Other Health Matters - Opportunities and Challenges
2 Session 2: Food Literacy and Communications Conveying Scientific Information Concerning Food Safety, Nutrition, or Other Health Matters - Opportunities and Challenges
Pages 23-82
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He suggested that what he described as "pop culture nutrition noise" has created a gap between sci 23
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Trusted sources are those that are concerned with public welfare, provide understandable and relatable information, and admit to uncertainties. The growth of digital and social media has contributed to what Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, described as a "sea of messages" in which consumers are swimming.
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She listed several additional sources of communication friction and ways to eliminate it. The sea of messages consumers receive are being delivered not just through digital and social media but also from food products themselves according to Craig Andrews, Marquette University.
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Vivica Kraak, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, reiterated what several speakers had said previously about the crowded food messaging environment. Exacerbating this problem, she noted, as Chester had, is that many companies marketing to children under 12 years of age have yet to align their brand mascots or licensed media characters with uniform nutrition criteria.
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. He showed a picture of Michael Douglas discussing his gluten-free diet with Jimmy Fallon, when Douglas told Fallon 1 This section summarizes information presented by Professor Caulfield.
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This is a "remarkable" trend, in his opinion, given what emerging science says about gluten-free diets and nonceliac gluten sensitivity. As another example of celebrity influence, Caulfield mentioned Gwyneth Paltrow and the "incredible hesitancy" in the general public regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
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. Additional emerging evidence suggests that social media also are having an influence on food choices through what Caulfield called the "Prius effect," with people making food (or other product)
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Concluding Thoughts In sum, Caulfield speculated that new ideas about nutrition, which may or may not have some basis in emerging science, become part of an identity package when they gain cultural currency and that celebrities play a major role in creating this identity package. A celebrity identity package is not only picked up by social media, he noted, but also reinforced by commercial marketing, becoming even more powerful.
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Therefore, Hallman asserted, most Americans depend on curators and 2 This section summarizes information presented by Dr. Hallman.
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He noted that although many people say they go to their health professionals for information about nutrition, most people in fact do not ask their physicians anything about the subject. And most physicians have little training in nutrition anyway, he added.
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We construct them based on whatever information we have in order to have some coherent way of managing the world." Whether that information comes from a celebrity such as Gwyneth Paltrow, a scientist, or an advertisement, he explained, we take it all in and use it to construct mental models. Hallman used foodborne illness to illustrate the type of food-related mental models many Americans have.
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Many people have what Hallman described as "sympathetic magic" mental models concerning food. As an example, he noted that many people believe in "psychological contagion," so that foods that come into contact with or are associated with things viewed as "dirty" become stigmatized even if they have been made clean after the contact.
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Figure 2-1 new that much of the misinformation that people are using Hallman stated to construct their mental models comes from the Internet. As one example, he showed an excerpt from an article, "The Top Five Cancer-Causing Foods," that was published on a Natural News website.
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The book tells readers how they can change their body chemistry from "cancer-friendly acidic" to "cancerkilling alkaline" for "pennies a day." As a final example, Hallman showed an image of Oprah, the "ultimate expert." Hallman and colleagues conducted a study of FDA-approved qualified health claims versus "common knowledge." They asked respondents how familiar they were with the relationship between certain dietary components (e.g., olive oil) and particular health claims (e.g., prevention of heart disease)
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Television and newspapers, while among the most trusted sources of risk information related to food, were also among the most mistrusted. Squires found the combination of great trust and great mistrust in television and newspapers particularly interesting, especially given that this survey was conducted before the rise of social media.
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Results of a Sullivan Higdon & Sink FoodThink survey on the use of digital and social media to make food choices indicated that 1 in 10 consumers was engaging with grocery-related brands (Sullivan Higdon & Sink, 2014)
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codes at grocery stores. Other data from the same FoodThink survey showed that people were using social media to make online restaurant ordering decisions as well, with 42 percent of boomers and 68 percent of millennials accessing nutritional information.
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, Byrd-Bredbenner reported, 94 percent of respondents reported that they thought about the healthfulness of foods and beverages they consumed, with 48 percent thinking about it "a lot" and 44 percent thinking about it "a little." Eighty-four percent of respondents indicated that they thought about the safety of foods and beverages, with 39 percent thinking about it "a lot" and 45 percent thinking about it "a little." Not only are people thinking about the healthfulness and safety of the foods and beverages they consume, Byrd-Bredbenner explained, but according to this survey, most also are trying to do something about these concerns. Fully 96 percent of respondents indicated that they were trying to control the 4 This section summarizes information presented by Dr.
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She listed several sources of communication friction, the first being what she described as "flabby and convoluted" writing style. Flabby Writing Flabby writing is difficult to read, Byrd-Bredbenner explained.
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Inaccessible qualified health claims cannot achieve the goal of helping consumers do a better job of choosing healthful foods, Byrd-Bredbenner remarked. Unfriendly Vocabulary Unfriendly vocabulary is another type of communication friction, ByrdBredbenner said, usually taking the form of using terms that are more appropriate for health professionals than for consumers (see Table 2-1)
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But she suggested that a great deal of clutter on food packages gets in the way of people's finding and using that information to make good dietary decisions. She noted that inconsistent formatting is also a problem with qualified health claims.
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In these cases, scientists and health professionals miss an important opportunity to help consumers weigh the evidence and adjust their "mental models." (See the summary of Hallman's presentation earlier in this chapter for a discussion of mental models.) Byrd-Bredbenner observed that streamlining also leads to the use of definitive language, such as "consumers need to do x" or "this study's findings clearly demonstrate x," which introduces skepticism.
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In their own research, Byrd-Bredbenner and colleagues have found that mothers of preschoolers are more motivated to read short communications if they elicit emotions related to happiness/fun,
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. Impersonal Messages Byrd-Bredbenner observed that communication friction can result from impersonal messages -- generic messages that are broadcast to a general audience and end up resonating with no one.
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COMMUNICATIONS CONVEYING SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION 47 Figure 2-1, fixed image
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She asserted that cognitive testing is essential to determine whether a message will resonate, motivate, or be understood but, she suggested, is done much too infrequently. Friction-Free Communication Byrd-Bredbenner closed by suggesting that messaging about food safety and nutrition could be improved by eliminating the above sources of communication friction: • Create tight, accessible, friendly communications.
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; (2) health claims, which link a nutrient to a particular health benefit (e.g., "low in saturated fat, reduces coronary heart disease")
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Fifth, truncation behavior is the tendency for consumers to cut short their search for nutrition information (i.e., on the Nutrition Facts panel) when a health claim is provided on the front of a package (Roe et al., 1999)
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observed the opposite: the effect of evaluative disclosures depended on the consumer's level of nutrition knowledge. Front-of-Package Nutrition Disclosures Burton reiterated Andrews's key point that the provision of accurate nutrition information often does not have the unambiguous results desired.
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(c) FIGURE 2-3 Different types of nutrition information messaging on food packages.
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In a noncomparative processing context, he continued, consumers are shown only the single objectively healthiest product, and their evaluation of the healthfulness of the product is based on their impression of that one product. In both processing context conditions, consumers are shown either reductive or evaluative icons.
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He knew that the meal, with its cheese and sour cream, was not healthy. Still, when the nutrition information was made available online, he was surprised to learn that every time he ate his plate of nachos, he was eating 2 days' worth of total fat, 3 days' worth of saturated fat, and 1.5 days' worth of sodium.
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Researchers who study calorie disclosures for restaurant chains consider a number of assumptions, Burton explained. The first is that there is a segment of consumers who want to make healthful food choices when eating outside the home, but there is another, generally larger segment who care little about the calorie and nutrient content of restaurant foods.
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ACTIVATING CONSUMERS ON THE PATH-TO-PURCHASE: DECODING THE ROLE OF BIG DATA AND DIGITAL MARKETING6 Chester began by asserting, "We need to understand the narrative of digital media in our lives. If we are to understand and effectively respond to the dramatic changes that have transformed and will continue to [trans 6 This section summarizes information presented by Mr.
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In Chester's opinion, food and beverage companies are becoming "community organizers" as well, with highly developed social media marketing strategies that take advantage of consumers' mobile and social relationships and locations. Finally, he observed, these companies have become venture capitalists in the new media, investing in startups to ensure that their brands and products are featured in the online apps that people, especially children, use.
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"Social media surveillance" is the term Chester used to describe the
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Even inside stores, Chester noted, mobile coupons can pop up and direct a consumer to a certain aisle. "All of this is happening," he said.
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This is an area in which companies could be 7 This section summarizes information presented by Dr. Kraak.
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She described celebrity endorsements of foods and beverages, including restaurant meals, as "the wild, wild west." Again, she said, most companies have made no voluntary pledges to align their celebrity endorsements with healthy criteria that target adolescents in particular. In Kraak's opinion, the very crowded food and beverage messaging environment calls for comprehensive, consistent, and smart policies -- not necessarily new policies, but revisions to existing ones.
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Figure 2-3, Fixed image out to the private sector to say, ‘You could be doing a lot more with your voluntary efforts in order to be marketing food and beverage products that support a healthy diet much better than you currently are doing.'" When Science Clashes with Public Opinion Kraak posed the question, "What do we do when science clashes with public opinion? " For example, many authoritative bodies -- including the FDA; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the European Commission; the World Health Organization (WHO)
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Additionally, some food companies use non-GMO food marketing as part of their product marketing profiles, according to Kraak. The gap between what eight different institutions have said about the safety of GMO foods and the growing industry around non-GMO food products demands attention, in Kraak's opinion.
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Kraak encouraged researchers to understand the diverse roles they can play in the policy process and to take advantage of political windows of opportunity to become involved. She cited qualitative research with policy elites in Australia, in which Haynes and colleagues (2011)
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. In terms of dissemination, one can measure the number of times such information is shared through social media or mentioned in the popular press; the number of times it is viewed online, heard through podcasts, or downloaded; and the number of times audience members at events or exhibition viewers engage with the information.
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. Alar and Apples Levitt's favorite case study of the gap between public policy and public perception, he said, is a food safety example involving Alar and apples in the late 1980s.
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Because of that transparency and because, as Levitt said, "there was nothing diabolical seemingly going on behind the scenes," the public did not display the outrage that characterized the Alar case. Based on this experience, he concluded that consumer outrage factors can be managed with some thought, although sometimes, he said, they "creep up on you," and policy makers need to take them into account.
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And while the associated risk was not considered serious, Levitt noted, an unknown risk can be as bad as or even worse than a known serious risk in people's minds. In addition, he said, foods derived from biotechnology had a dedicated counterforce -- environmentalists, who effectively branded them in a negative way, initially as "frankenfoods" and later as "genetically modified organisms." He explained that the FDA conducted some focus group studies and found that people viewed the term "genetically modified organism" as pejorative.
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The Influence of Celebrity Culture Following his presentation, Timothy Caulfield fielded many questions from the workshop audience. First, Sarah Roller, a session moderator, asked him about Angelina Jolie's endorsement of breast cancer screening, which Roller considered a "fairly science-based choice" compared with the other examples cited by Caulfield.
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Regulation will be difficult, in his opinion. An audience member remarked on the growing number of pro-science celebrities on social media, such as Bill Nye the Science Guy, and opined that, while a "great start," these personalities are "preaching to the choir" and do not have the same reach that someone like Gwyneth Paltrow has.
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Caulfield noted that the examples he had used were simply good examples of the role of celebrity culture. He agreed that celebrity culture has played a role in the obesity crisis through the marketing of sports drinks, pop, and similar products.
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Instead, he suggested pushing for legislation and conducting studies to expose the "invisible network of influencers" that is working online to promote food and beverage products. As he had elaborated during his presentation, he reiterated that food and beverage companies have engaged the services of specialist companies and have partnered with Google, YouTube, and others to make it appear as though friends and other people are promoting their products when in fact an orchestrated promotion is being conducted.
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Part of being food literate, Grier suggested, is being able to analyze things that do not seem reasonable and truthful and to make more informed decisions. Celebrity Culture and the Consumer Craig Lefebvre responded to the celebrity issue by saying, "Throw the celebrities out the window." He compared focusing on celebrities to chasing butterflies.
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Chester reiterated that none of what he had described regarding the use of data and social media marketing was new. Food and beverage companies have been using these techniques for 4 or 5 years, he noted.
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Burton added that developers of the Nutrition Facts panel faced the reality that cues, formats, and the panel itself have different effects on different populations -- the panel helps some people, but not everyone, he said. Starting Where the Audience Is Referring to the emphasis of several speakers on the importance of "starting where your audience is," Lefebvre commented that many people want to eat healthy foods so as to be energetic.
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In his opinion, it is an "interesting conundrum" that consumers want to eat healthier foods to be more energetic, yet "the system" does not allow for any discussion of the issue because the relevant research has not been funded. Health Communication Lefebvre referred to Andrews's observation during his presentation that people sometimes misinterpret messages about "healthier" foods, and recalled reading recently in the newspaper that Campbell's was making healthier soups by reducing sodium, but was unable to gain any traction in sales from this effort.
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"That's the beauty of the Internet," she said. One can share information through social media and "galvanize around anything." Additionally, Squires mentioned SparkPeople.com and its 14 million unique users who are focused on losing or keeping weight off.
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Chester remarked that stores nationwide are installing beacons that can track individuals' movements -- walking across the street to a McDonald's, for instance, or inside a Walmart. He encouraged seizing the opportunity to go to churches, stores, and other neighborhood gathering places and explain to young people and others that they are going to be targeted in this way and can have a voice to "rewire this system in a different direction." An audience member questioned why more is not being done in schools to encourage health literacy and strengthen what she called "STEM acumen." Baur responded that, although national health education standards exist, many health professionals do not know about or use them.
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She asked whether it was better to get that information into the hands of doctors or to use social media as a platform for connecting directly with one's audience. Squires replied that, sadly, nutrition education in medical schools has been lacking for several decades.
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In his opinion, what was done with tobacco is not a role model for what should be done with healthy eating. The problem is highly complex, Freedman continued.
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These beliefs and their tenacious nature "short circuit" efforts to provide good, useful information, Freedman explained. He noted that Baur had discussed how most people could not make sense of nutrition labels, and that Burton had described challenges associated with communicating calorie information on nutrition labels.
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Freedman suggested further that the widespread notion that intense food marketing is "bad" is a flawed assumption. He mentioned having heard someone at this workshop recommend, as an alternative strategy that he views as brilliant, doing what is necessary to get food companies on the "right" side of the problem so that they are producing healthier options and then "turn[ing]
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