Teenagers Impulse to Rebel Could Help Curb Obesity Crisis

13 Sep 2016 --- A new study, "Harnessing Adolescent Values to Motivate Healthier Eating”, has found that by appealing to widely-held adolescent values, it's possible to reduce unhealthy eating habits and motivate better food choices among adolescents.

The new research conducted by Christopher J. Bryan of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and David Yeager of the University of Texas was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers said their goal was to portray healthy eating as a way to take a stand against injustice, and to stand up for vulnerable people who lack the ability to protect themselves.

To capture the motivating power of these values, researchers worked with groups of eighth graders to reshape their perception of healthy eating as an act of independence that serves the purpose of social justice.

"We took a two-pronged approach to this," said researcher Christopher J. Bryan, "First, our healthy eating message was framed as an exposé of manipulative food industry marketing practices that influence and deceive adolescents and others into eating larger quantities of unhealthy foods."

The researchers also described journalistic accounts of such industry practices as engineering processed foods to maximize addictiveness and to encourage overconsumption, as well as using deceptive labeling to make unhealthy products appear healthy.

"We framed healthy eating as a way to 'stick it to the man',” explained Bryon, “We cast the executives behind food marketing as controlling adult authority figures and framed the avoidance of junk food as a way to rebel against their control."

As a result, the test subjects chose fewer junk food options as snacks and preferred water over sugary sodas. The teens made the choices outside the context of the nutrition talk, when they were unaware their choices were being tracked.

Overall, the researchers saw a 7 percentage point increase in the rate at which teens chose to forgo sugary drinks in favor of water.

It also led to an 11 percentage point increase in the rate at which they opted to forgo at least one unhealthy snack like chips or cookies, in favor of something healthy like fruit, carrots, or nuts.

"It is exciting to consider what the size of these effects would look like if extrapolated to average daily consumption," Bryan says. For example, if sustained over time, a 7 percent reduction in adolescents' consumption of carbohydrates would correspond to one pound of body fat lost, or not gained, roughly every 6 weeks for boys and every 8 weeks for girls.”

It’s believed that preventing obesity is both more effective and less expensive than treating people who are already obese, so the researchers hope that their new "value harnessing" approach could lead to lasting change.

"This approach provides an immediate, symbolic benefit for resisting temptation. Feeling like a high-status and respect-worthy person right now because one is acting in accordance with important values shared with one's peers," Bryan says.

Additionally, the researchers state that an intervention based on this work could use tactics such school-wide campaigns with student-designed posters and online videos that could create a lasting and self-reinforcing social movement.