Food for Thought

20/12/14 9:40 AM

Food for Thought

By: MY (MYLA) BUI
The AMA Journal Reader

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Marketing News
Systems for Trust
Shopper GPS
On the Front Lines
Information Overhaul
Good Tidings for Retail

Key Takeaways

More

Some easily assessable marketing

initiatives that consumers look for

when they are searching for nutrient
information are salient front-ofpackage (FOP) nutrition labels.
Insights shed light on how the roles of
food and food marketing initiatives
impact consumer behavior.

Selections from
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing
September 2014 | Food
In recent years, the increasing prevalence of obesity amongst
industrialized nations has focused more attention on the role
of food in society. According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC 2014), more than one-third
(78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese, and as of the latest
statistics in 2008, the annual medical costs of obesity are
estimated at $147 billion. In turn, marketers and public
policymakers have worked to better understand a range of
food decision-making issues through a multitude of theoretical
and methodological vantage points, and using a variety of
data collection methodsfrom field studies to lab
experiments and proprietary data sets.

Marketing Insights
Will Privacy Fears Dam
Up the Data Ecosystem?
Whats in a Brand?
The Big Data Shift
Sound Off
Socially Engaging Both
Sides of the Brain
More

Marketing Health Services

Programmed for Health
The Education Gap
Is Your Advertising on an

https://www.ama.org/publications/E-publications/Pages/ama-journal-reader-september-14-jppm-food.aspx

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Food for Thought

Each article in this collection from the Journal of Public Policy

& Marketing provides a unique perspective on several
strategic food consumption-related issues, including the
marketing of health claims, the influence of providing nutrition
information on consumers decision-making processes, the
advertisement of food and beverages to children, the
relationship between fast-food restaurants proximity and
adolescents weight, and the proposition of a more holistic
approach to understanding eating behaviors. The articles
insights shed light on how the roles of food and food
marketing initiatives impact consumer behavior, and how
various nutrition labeling strategies currently are adopted by
many food marketers.

20/12/14 9:40 AM

Ego Trip?
Let's Talk
Fast Track: Danah Phillips
of Bloom Health
More

For example, in Eating with a Purpose: Consumer Response

to Functional Food Health Claims in Conflicting Versus
Complementary Information Environment, published in 2009,
Rebecca W. Naylor, Courtney M. Droms and Kelly L. Haws
rely on laboratory experimentation to demonstrate how
consumers are likely to choose functional foods when
confronted with conflicting versus complementary health
claims. Their results show that consumers with lower health
consciousness are less likely to choose functional foods when
confronted with conflicting health claims. Provided that many
consumers tend not to be highly health conscious, exploiting
marketing strategies geared toward enhancing situational
health consciousness at the point of purchase can temporarily
enhance a consumers level of health consciousness. For
example, using marketing signage throughout the grocery
store to promote eating high-fiber foods (e.g., fruits and
vegetables), along with the positive consequences of
consuming high-fiber nutrients may help activate higher levels
of consumer health consciousness. Such efforts may help
attenuate discounting behaviors toward functional food health
claims when presented with conflicting information.
Some easily assessable marketing initiatives that consumers
look for when they are searching for nutrient information are
salient front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labels, which are
provided on a variety of consumer packaged foods. In
Healthful Food Decision Making in Response to Traffic Light
Color-Coded Nutrition Labeling, published in 2014, Joerg
Koenigstorfer, Andrea Groeppel-Klein and Friederike Kamm
investigate whether color-coded nutrition information helps
consumers make more healthful food choices. Their findings
indicate that, compared with individuals with higher selfcontrol to resist food temptations, consumers with lower selfcontrol make more healthful food choices when they are
provided with nutrition label information featuring a trafficlight-like color coding system, which indicates whether a food
provides nutritional benefits and could be consumed regularly
(green light) or if it should be considered a hardly ever eat
food (red light), as well as choices that might not be
nutritionally ideal and yet would be considered a once-in-ahttps://www.ama.org/publications/E-publications/Pages/ama-journal-reader-september-14-jppm-food.aspx

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Food for Thought

20/12/14 9:40 AM

while food (yellow light).

Similar to marketers and health advocates concerted efforts
to curb escalating rates of adult obesity, efforts to combat
rising childhood obesity rates also are garnering attention.
Using firm-level data, Rui Huang and Muzhe Yang examine
whether the food industrys self-regulatory program to restrict
food marketing to children (i.e., the Childrens Food and
Beverage Advertising Initiative) impacts both advertising
exposure to children and household purchases. In their study,
Buy What Is Advertised on Television? Evidence from the
Bans on Child-Directed Food Advertising, published in 2013,
they maintain that although restricting child-directed
advertising does not reduce overall food advertising to
children, it does help minimize household purchases of
unhealthy snacks.
Sonya Grier and Brennan Davis examine obesity rates
amongst a different profile of consumers, middle and high
school adolescents, in their study, Are All Proximity Effects
Created Equal? Fast Food Near Schools and Body Weight
Among Diverse Adolescents, published in 2013. To do so,
they examine whether a relationship exists between fast-food
restaurant proximity and intra-urban adolescent body weight.
Building upon conventional wisdom that there is an
association between fast-food proximity and body weight
outcome, Grier and Daviss field study results indicate that
this relationship differs across demographic profiles of
adolescents. Specifically, the association between having
fast-food near schools and increased body weight is four
times stronger for subpopulations of Hispanic and AfricanAmerican students in low-income, urban schools compared
with other groups.
Finally, in an attempt to better understand the role of food at
an individual and societal level, Lauren G. Block, Sonya A.
Grier, Terry L. Childers, Brennan Davis, Jane E.J. Ebert,
Shiriki Kumanyika, Russell N. Laczniak, Jane E. Machin,
Carol M. Motley, Laura Peracchio, Simone Pettigrew, Maura
Scott and Mirjam N.G. van Ginkel Bieshaar propose a radical
restructuring of the research paradigm from the current food
as health to the newly minted food as well-being (FWB)
framework. In their study, From Nutrients to Nurturance: A
Conceptual Introduction to Food Well-Being, published in
2011, they endorse the idea of the FWB framework as a
research model (encompassing food socialization, food
literacy, food availability, food marketing and food policy) as it
employs a richer definition of the role of food and entails the
bridging of domains outside and within marketing to move the
food and health marketing field forward.
The articles in this collection address multiple issues
pertaining to food-related consumption. Specifically, each of
these articles provides policy implications that help inform
https://www.ama.org/publications/E-publications/Pages/ama-journal-reader-september-14-jppm-food.aspx

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Food for Thought

20/12/14 9:40 AM

consumer health advocates in current social health issue

debates as well as public policy decisions. They also identify
a host of warranted research intended to improve consumer
health and welfare. As such, each of these topical areas
related to food decision-making is worthy of further empirical
investigation.

Articles Featured in This Collection

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Block, Lauren G., Sonya A. Grier, Terry L. Childers, Brennan

Davis, Jane E.J. Ebert, Shiriki Kumanyika, Russell N.
Laczniak, Jane E. Machin, Carol M. Motley, Laura Peracchio,
Simone Pettigrew, Maura Scott, and Mirjam N.G. van Ginkel
Bieshaar (2011), From Nutrients to Nurturance: A
Conceptual Introduction to Food Well-Being, Journal of
Public Policy & Marketing, 30 (Spring), 513.
CDC (2014), Adult Obesity Facts, (accessed August 18,
2014), [available at http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.htm]
Grier, Sonya and Brennan Davis (2013), Are All Proximity
Effects Created Equal? Fast Food Near Schools and Body
Weight Among Diverse Adolescents, Journal of Public Policy
& Marketing, 32 (Spring), 11628.
Huang, Rui and Muzhe Yang (2013), Buy What Is Advertised
on Television? Evidence from the Bans on Child-Directed
Food Advertising, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 32
(Fall), 207222.
Koenigstorfer, Joerg, Andrea Groeppel-Klein, and Friederike
Kamm (2014), Healthful Food Decision Making in Response
to Traffic Light Color-Coded Nutrition Labeling, Journal of
Public Policy & Marketing, 33 (Spring), 6577.
Naylor, Rebecca W., Courtney M. Droms, and Kelly L. Haws
(2009), Eating with a Purpose: Consumer Response to
Functional Food Health Claims in Conflicting Versus
Complementary Information Environment Journal of Public
Policy & Marketing, 28 (Fall), 22133.

https://www.ama.org/publications/E-publications/Pages/ama-journal-reader-september-14-jppm-food.aspx

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Food for Thought

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Author
Bio:
MY (MYLA) BUI
MY (MYLA) BUI is an Assistant Professor of
Marketing at Loyola Marymount University
Professor Bui has published articles in the Journal
of Advertising Research, Journal of Public Policy
& Marketing, European Journal of Marketing
among others. Her research interests include food
and health consumption decision making,
consumer emotions and retailing atmospherics.
Professor Bui is a member of the Journal of Public
Policy & Marketing editorial review board.
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Displaying 1 Comments
Gulraiz
October 2, 2014
Ahmad
Precise n beneficial approach required anyhow good for brain
storming

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