Beautiful food, which corresponds to the ideal patterns found in nature, activates our reward circuits in the brain and leads us to imagine them healthier and less caloric.
- The most effective way to make food appear healthier is to move closer to a “classic” aesthetic, characterized by the ideal patterns found in nature.
- Despite having the same information on ingredients and price, the participants in the experiment judged a nice dish to be healthier, more nutritious, containing fewer calories and more natural than the same dish that was less well presented.
- A warning next to the food reminding people that the food has been artificially modified reduces the bias between aesthetics and healthiness of the product.
Marketing is all around us and every year we are exposed to around 7,000 food and restaurant advertisements, according to US researchers from the University of Southern California. In a study titled “Pretty Healthy Food: How and when aesthetics improve perceived health”, published on September 14 in the Journal of Marketingthe authors analyzed the influence of aesthetics on our impressions of food.
A classic aesthetic to look healthier
To make food more appetizing, advertisers are sprucing up their marketing. This technique assumes that aesthetics is closely associated with pleasure and indulgence and used to drive consumers to consume. This activates our reward circuitry in the brain but, the researchers note, the link to pleasure can make pretty food seem unhealthy because people tend to view pleasure and usefulness as mutually exclusive. . “For example, many people have a general intuition that food is either tasty or healthy, but not both.”, estimates Linda Hagen, principal author of the article.
The most effective way to make food appear healthier is to move closer to a “classic” aesthetic, characterized by the ideal patterns found in nature. This means using a symmetrical look, common in nature, or even order and systematic patterns. Carrying these natural visual characteristics would make our food representations more natural. Foods whose representation meets these criteria appear healthier because people tend to consider natural things healthier than unnatural things like processed foods.
The more beautiful it is, the more consumers are willing to pay
In a series of experiments, the researchers tested the perception of the healthy character of the same food according to its representation, either following the classic aesthetic principles or not following them. In a first experiment, participants evaluated avocado toast. Everyone read the same information about ingredients and price but some saw a nice looking toast while others got a picture of a not very aesthetically pleasing toast. Despite having identical food information, respondents rated Pretty Avocado Toast as overall healthier, more nutritious, lower in calories, and more natural. Judgments on freshness or size were not affected. Other experiments on the same model gave similar results.
These differences in representation have affected consumer behavior. In another field experiment, consumers were willing to pay much more for a pretty pepper than for an ugly one. In another study, the researchers note, even when people were given financial incentives to correctly identify which of two foods had fewer calories, they were more likely to report that a target food was the lower-calorie option when it was pretty than when it was ugly, even if that choice cost them money.
Show a warning tones down the aesthetic effect
The researchers note that the aesthetic effect on the healthy perception of food is limited to classical aesthetics. The “expressive” aesthetic, which does not involve nature-like patterns but rather involves creative ideas, such as food cut into playful shapes or arranged to represent a scene, has not led to a change in perception. consumers. Also, displaying a warning next to the food reminding people that the food has been artificially modified reduces the bias between aesthetics and healthiness of the product.
“Classic aesthetics can be a subtle, cost-effective new way to convey naturalness and wholesomeness, attributes that consumers are increasingly demanding in food products.notes Linda Hagen. At the same time, pretty food presentation can optimistically skew nutritional estimates and negatively impact dietary decisions. With these findings, policy makers may consider considering modification disclaimers as an intervention or strengthening regulations regarding the provision of objective nutrition information with food images..”
.