Tuesday 20 December 2016

The Strange Effects of Thinking Healthy Food Is Costlier

The Strange Effects of Thinking Healthy Food Is Costlier

 Interesting study on how people feel about the cost of healthy foods.


Newswise — COLUMBUS, Ohio – Consumers believe healthy food must be more expensive than cheap eats and that higher-priced food is healthier – even when there is no supporting evidence, according to new research.

The results mean not only that marketers can charge more for products that are touted as healthy, but that consumers may not believe that a product is healthy if it doesn’t cost more, researchers say.
And this belief in the health power of expensive foods may lead people to some other surprising conclusions.

For example, people in one study thought eye health was a more important issue for them when they were told about an expensive but unfamiliar food ingredient that would protect their vision. If the same ingredient was relatively cheap, people didn’t think the issue it treated – eye health – was as important.

“It’s concerning. The findings suggest that price of food alone can impact our perceptions of what is healthy and even what health issues we should be concerned about,” said Rebecca Reczek, co-author of the study and professor of marketing at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.
Reczek conducted the study with Kelly Haws of Vanderbilt University and Kevin Sample of the University of Georgia. Their results appear online in the Journal of Consumer Research.

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