Health communication implications of the perceived meanings of terms used to denote unhealthy foods

With the aim of improving the effectiveness of nutrition education programs and behavior change campaigns, Pettigrew, Talati and Pratt (2017) studied 409 Australian survey respondents aged 25-64 years on their perceptions of the meaning of four terms used to describe unhealthy foods: junk food, snack food, party food and discretionary food. The research found ‘junk food’ to be the term most aligned with unhealthiness, and likely to represent wording that is relevant to many target audience members. Other findings included the term “discretionary food” was not a familiar term for many respondents, and snack foods were considered to include both healthy and unhealthy food products. Both snack foods and party foods were often described as being consumed in small portions. These results highlighted that different terms for unhealthy foods can have substantially varying meanings for audience members and therefore, a detailed understanding of these meanings is required to ensure that nutrition guidance and health promotion campaigns use appropriate terminology. [NPID: perception, nutrition education programs, behavior change campaigns, junk food, snack food, party food, wording, target audience, marketing, terminology]

Year: 2017

Reference: Pettigrew, S., Talati, Z., & Pratt, I. S. (2017). Health communication implications of the perceived meanings of terms used to denote unhealthy foods. BMC obesity, 4, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40608-016-0142-0