manipulating menus description: When meals on a menu are given descriptive names, customers typically find them more attractive. Attention-grabbing verbs like “slow-cooked” and “lightly pickled” or adjectives like “savory” or “tangy” can be enticing. Also, how prices are displayed can affect what item we choose on the menu. why it happens: Descriptive names and words lead to expectations, and expectations can influence how the food tastes to us. Descriptors that are geographic (Chicago-style deep dish pizza), nostalgic (Grandma’s apple pie), sensory (sweet, minty, smoked), or brand-named (Minute Maid, Coca-Cola) can connect the food to a specific experience or improve perceptions of a food. In regards to menu pricing, sometimes restaurants will leave out dollar signs and decimals so the prices seem less salient and intimidating, influencing one to choose an item they may have not chosen had there been a dollar sign or decimal. descriptive label study: In a 2005 study published in Food Quality and Preference, customers who ate foods with descriptive menu names (like “Succulent Italian Seafood Filet”) rated the food as more appealing and tasty and left more positive comments than those who ate the same exact dish named “Seafood Filet.”8
the health halo effect description: People tend to eat more of a food product when it is labeled as “lowfat,” “low calorie,” “high in fiber,” or any advertising that portrays a food as healthy.
why it happens: People see these products as “healthier” to eat, and therefore believe that it must be okay to eat more of it.
McSubway study: According to a 2007 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, participants estimated that sandwiches and burgers from fast food restaurants claiming to be healthy (like Subway) contained 35% fewer calories than those from restaurants not making healthy claims (like McDonald’s), even though the calorie content was the same. Not only were they biased due to the health halo effect, but they were more likely to eat more unhealthy sides such as mayo, chips, cookies, and soda with their “healthy” sub-sandwich.9
pause points description: People tend to eat less from multiple/segmented sleeves and eat more
why it happens: Presenting food in multiple sleeves makes serving size more salient to the eater/snacker. Segmentation allows people to pause and think before they open the next sleeve or continue eating, providing a break in automated eating sequences and encouraging better monitoring. potato chips study: In a 2012 study published in Health Psychology, 2 groups of
college students were given tubes of potato chips (think of Pringles!) to eat.; 1 group received tubes that contained some chips that were dyed red and were interspersed at intervals that suggested adequate serving size. Clueless as to why some chips were red, the students who had the red chips ate 50% less than their peers without the red chips, suggesting that the red markers may have acted as “stop signs” to end food consumption.10
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left: electric crayon/istockphoto; mark gillow/istockphoto; bariscan celik/isotckphoto right: ju-lee/istockphoto; tova photography/istockphoto
total wellness ▪ fall 2013
from single, large sleeves of food. For example, sleeves of Ritz crackers are traditionally long in length, but consumers now have the option to buy the same amount of crackers that are divided into many “mini” sleeves.