Consumer News Now

Tip of the Month

By Mitchell Davenport

Consider the "halo effect" before ordering health foods

There's currently a rising popularity in healthy foods, but obesity rates are going up at the same time. Why?

Researchers Pierre Chandon (INSEAD, France) and Brian Wansink (Cornell University) set out to determine why we are eating healthier food and still gaining weight.

Chandon and Wansink found that it's most likely due to the "health halo effect," meaning when consumers hear that there's a fast-food restaurant that has "low-calorie" foods, they overgeneralize that all or most of the foods in the restaurant are "healthy." And that's just not the case.

In fact, consumers estimated that sandwiches from "healthier" fast-food restaurants contained 35 percent fewer calories than they actually had. And not only that, but as a result of their underestimation, consumers then felt it was okay to load up on beverages, side dishes and desserts containing up to 131 percent more calories when the main course they ordered was advertised as "healthy" as compared to when it was not.

But in their study, Chandon and Wansink found the sandwiches positioned as healthy already contained 50 percent more calories than the "unhealthy" sandwiches.

What's a consumer to do? One strategy is to examine whether "low-calorie" claims by restaurants apply to the particular foods you plan on ordering. Learning to think of food in terms of the number of calories rather than whether it is a "good food" or a "bad food."

The findings were originally published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Shopping for fun? You're not alone!

Nearly three-quarters of shoppers say they have hit the aisles just for the fun of it, not because they actually need something. According to an ACNielsen online survey, 74 percent of the world's consumers admit they have shopped just to have something to do.

And here's some more startling news, American shoppers are below the global average for recreational shopping, coming in at only 68 percent when it comes to shopping when they don't really need anything. In contrast, the Asia-Pacific region has a much larger number of recreational shoppers, with 84 percent saying they shop merely for entertainment. Hong Kong and Indonesia report an astonishing 93 percent of shoppers who shop just for the fun of it.

The trend is growing all over the globe, with all 42 markets surveyed by ACNeilsen reporting the majority of their consumers are shopping just to have something to do. Seventy-three percent of Latin Americans and 68 percent of Europeans are recreational shoppers.

However, Europeans are the least likely to be recreational shoppers, with nine of the 10 countries that reported "never" shopping unless it's necessary being in Europe. Fifty percent of Czechs say they never shop recreationally; 44 percent of Austrians; 43 percent of Hungarians; 42 percent of Portuguese; 41 percent of Spaniards; 36 percent of Danes; Norwegians and poles tied at 35 percent and Britons came in at 34 percent.

U.S. consumers were the most likely, at 14 percent, to report "loathing" shopping for clothing. And 70 percent of Americans say they see grocery shopping as just a necessary chore. Six of the top 10 markets that say shopping is their favorite thing to do, whether it is for clothes or food, were in the Asia-Pacific region.