Do you have a junk food craving?
Ross Hollett, psychology lecturer at Edith Cowan University, says a brief message may be able to cut right through it.
Faculty Bio:
Ross Hollett is a psychological scientist whose work examines how media exposure shapes social attitudes, body image and health behaviours. Primarily using experimental methods, his research investigates how junk‑food, alcohol and public‑health advertisements influence cravings and consumption intentions in real time. He also collaborates across disciplines such as marketing and computer science to advance research on fashion imagery and body image outcomes in women.
Transcript:
From Netflix to social media, most of us are exposed to a steady stream of food advertising everyday. While concerns are often raised about the impact of junk food advertising, evidence about how these messages influence adults in the moment has been surprisingly mixed. My colleagues and I set out to better understand what actually happens in the minutes after people see different types of food advertisements.
We showed 505 adults a single short advertisement, either a typical junk food commercial or a public health message discouraging junk food, and immediately measured their cravings and intentions to eat junk food. We also examined whether responses differed between adults with a body mass index in the normal range and adults classified as overweight or living with obesity.
Across all groups, one finding was clear: seeing a single junk food advertisement did not increase immediate cravings or intentions to eat junk food, even when the ad featured foods people said they enjoyed. But the opposite was true for health focused messages. Anti junk food advertisements reduced cravings and reduced intentions to eat junk food across all BMI groups.
We also discovered that the length and framing of these health messages mattered. For adults in the normal BMI range, a brief 15 second anti junk food message was more effective than a 30 second version. For adults classified as overweight or living with obesity, messages that encouraged healthy alternatives worked better than messages that criticised junk food.
This suggests that short, positively framed health messages may offer a practical advantage: they cost less to air, can be shown more frequently, and may resonate with the very people who stand to benefit most.
As unhealthy food marketing continues to dominate our media environment, even small, well targeted moments of positive health messaging may help tip the balance toward healthier choices.
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