Mince pies. Toa Heftiba on Unsplash.
People are more likely to choose a healthy food if it’s presented amongst unhealthy snack options, according to research from LSE's Department of Management.
The paper, published in the journal Psychological Science, details an experiment where participants could be encouraged to choose the healthier of two ‘baskets’ of food containing two items each.
One basket contained two unhealthy options and the other a healthy and an unhealthy option. For example one basket might contain a Snickers chocolate bar and a packet of Oreos. And the other a Snickers bar and some carrots.
Participants were told that they would receive just one item from the basket they chose, but that they would not know which item they would get.
The researchers found that participants in this ‘basket’ experiment were two times more likely to choose the healthy choice – a basket containing one healthy and one unhealthy choice – than when they were given a straight choice between one healthy and one unhealthy item.
Dr Nicolette Sullivan, LSE Assistant Professor of Marketing and lead author of the paper said, “Our research suggests that the context of the food we buy at the supermarket or choose from a menu is very important. It’s counter-intuitive, but putting a healthy option – fruit in the chocolate aisle for example – may make is stand out more and make us more likely to choose it.”
The researchers tracked where participants were looking during the experiment and found that the healthy option stood out more among the unhealthy options, with participants unconsciously looking at it more. This increased attention allowed participants the chance to consider those healthy options for longer, and choose them more often.
The researchers found they could reverse the effect. When the choice was between one basket containing two healthy items and another containing a healthy and an unhealthy item – that is, when one unhealthy item was surrounded by all healthy options - participants were more likely to choose the unhealthy item.
Dr Sullivan said: “It is not just about making more healthy options available. It’s important that policy makers keep this in mind when thinking about issues like tackling food deserts – urban areas where people find it difficult to buy fresh food. Just flooding a corner shop with healthy options is unlikely to encourage people to eat more healthily.
“Equally, keeping a fruit basket separate from the unhealthy goodies this Christmas is probably not going to help either! Our work suggests that adding some healthier options to your dessert spread may make them stand out and make them easier to choose.”
At the beginning of the experiment participants were asked to rate different foods on their tastiness, healthiness and how much they wanted to eat them. This meant that they were never presented with a food that they did not like in the basket experiment.
Because the experiment’s sample size was small (73), the effect the researchers found was larger than it would be in a real world ‘uncontrolled’ environment – where the effect would be likely to be smaller but still significant.