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Dieters More Likely to be Duped by Food Labels

June 11th, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments
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If you’re on a diet, please pay attention. According to a study in the upcoming edition of the Journal of Consumer Research, dieters are more likely than non-dieters to be misled when choosing a food product.

The study was conducted on a group of 520 participants. Some examples of responses:

  • Dieters rated food called “salad” healthier than an identical product called “pasta”.  Non-dieters made no such distinctions.
  • Dieters rated a candy labeled “fruit chew” as healthier than the same candy when labeled “candy chew.”

According to Caglar Irmak, PhD, assistant professor of marketing at the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina:

“The fact that people’s perceptions of healthfulness vary with the name of the food item isn’t surprising. What is interesting is that dieters, who try to eat healthy and care about what they eat, fell into these ‘naming traps’ more than non-dieters who really don’t care about healthy eating.” read more…

What to do at the supermarket:

Front of package labeling is not about health or nutrition, it is about selling you the product. Don’t fall for “naming traps” or other nutritional tricks. Make sure to ignore the marketing information (aside from the product name) and head straight for the ingredient list and nutrition label.


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  • David Pool

    The presumption here seems to be that “dieters” equates to “knowledgeable” which, it ought to be obvious, is not the case.  In fact, for a great number of them, “dieters” typically means “blindly driven.”  So, of course they’re not really thinking…making decisions based on anything rational.  Seem from the long-term, my view has always been that if you even use the word “diet,” you’re doomed.

  • Jessica

    I think deep down they know better.  I think they are just so desperate for something “bad” or “off plan” that they rationalize something unhealthy as good.

  • http://twitter.com/maddiemudster Maddie Mudster

    Is anyone seriously surprised by this? Sadly, the only people that truly know how to diet are the anorexics. Why? Because the dieters are usually dieting for the perceptions of others, whereas the anorexics are dieting because they see it in themselves.

    It’s sad, but as a recovering anorexic… I know way more about the caloric and nutrition information of food than any of my mom’s friends that have been “dieting” since before I was born.

  • Cat

    The assumption that non-dieters don’t care about healthy eating is such a foolish blanket statement.  Maybe it is that a lot of non-dieters (including all the ‘naturally thin’ people) have a healthier attitude to food all around and so don’t get sucked in by so called health statements.  It is interesting to me that it looks like they are assuming non-dieters are the fat, unhealthy people.  It seems to me to be the other way around a lot of the time.

  • Chef1sharon

    I work in a Nursing Home with a few Obese patients. The 60 year old obese patients walk the same speed or slower than the 85 year old adverage size patients. The obese have breathing, heart and mobility disabilities in addition to adverage aging limitations that greatly lower their quality of life.

  • Chef1sharon

    continued………..The patients in the Nursing home cannot read the labels of the food they are served, they have to depend on others judgement about what is healthy for them. It is not always edible looking or tasting. Be glad you can be educated by reading food labels.