Health 'Buzzwords' Encourage Consumers to Buy Certain Food Products

Our food choices may be partially influenced by certain health buzzwords that lull consumers into thinking certain products are "better" for them than they actually are.

A recent study conducted by researchers at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston (UH) in Texas notes that certain wordings that include things like "antioxidants" and "gluten-free" may encourage some consumers into buying these "healthier" products.

"Saying Cherry 7-Up contains antioxidants is misleading. Food marketers are exploiting consumer desires to be healthy by marketing products as nutritious when, in fact, they're not," said Temple Northup, principal investigator of the study, "Truth, Lies, and Packaging: How Food Marketing Creates a False Sense of Health."

More specifically, researchers found that consumers tended to view food products which were labeled with health-related euphemisms as healthier than those without. They also found that nutrition facts on food packing required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did little to interact with such marketing.

"Words like organic, antioxidant, natural and gluten-free imply some sort of healthy benefit," Northup added, according to a news release. "When people stop to think about it, there's nothing healthy about Antioxidant Cherry 7-Up - it's mostly filled with high fructose syrup or sugar. But its name is giving you this clue that there is some sort of health benefit to something that is not healthy at all."

"For example, if I gave you the word 'doctor,' not only 'doctor' would be accessible in your mind - now all these other things would be accessible in your mind -  'nurse,' 'stethoscope,' etc.," Northup concluded. "What happens when these words become accessible, they tend to influence or bias your frame of mind and how you evaluate something."