Food Marketing Can Help or Hurt

October 14, 2012 — In a recent paper published in Nutrition Reviews, Pierre Chandon and Brian Wansink review what we can conclude about the relationship between obesity and food marketing and they make recommendations for using the power of food marketing to help consumers adopt healthier diets.

The authors suggest that food marketing takes four forms–product size, marketing communication, product price and the actual product itself–and that each must be taken into consideration when looking at the influence of food marketing. After reviewing a number of studies, they also conclude that researchers tend to overestimate the amount of deliberation decision-making that is taking place among consumers and underestimate the effect of unconscious reaction in consumption decisions. 

You can read the entire Nutrition Reviews article here.