This study just blew up your healthy breakfast

This study just blew up your healthy breakfastThis study just blew up your healthy breakfastA new study published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketingcalls into question the nutritional information printed on the front of cereal boxes. Despite a government enforced mandate, the authors of the recent review motion that the correlation between the purported health value featured on the packaging and the actual nutritional content is zero to nonexistent.The four types of claims featuredthe mostThe new paper features a detailed analysis of the four most practiced marketing tactics adopted by breakfast cereal brands. In order to properly determine the frequency of each tactic utilizedbelow the researchers began with a list of 107 health claims displayed on packaged foods sold in the U.S. between 1998 and 2007as recorded in the ProductScan database for food product packages.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satis faction, Neuroscience, and moraScience and absence based focus This description refers to prefixes like low fat or light. Consumers are meant to believe a product is healthy because of specific negative characteristics of food were either altered or completely removed.Science and presence focus Think Probiotics. This tactic highlights that properties have either been fortified or added, i.e adding positives, as the study reports.Nature and Absence focusNo additives, No artificial colors. The products health valuesurvives on the claim that no negative characteristics were added.Nature and presencefocus Made with whole grains. Unprocessed. The healthyaspects of the advertised food have not been altered or removed.Healthy Through Presence or Absence, Nature or Science? A Framework For Understanding Front-of-Package Food ClaimsThe most recent report is actually a thorough review of four independent studies previously conducted. Researchers discovered that even though claims made by many of the cereal brands included had a large influence on customer impression, the claims were seldom at harmony with actual nutritional content or weight loss promotion benefits, the authors clarify, Despite the lack of association between claim type and objective nutritional quality, consumers expect claim type to be a strong predictor of the healthiness, taste, and dieting properties of breakfast cereals.In one of the studies reviewed, participants were presented with 633 different cereal brands. Four hundred and sixty brands of the 633, specifically boasted the inclusion of healthy content on the front of the packaging. Seventy-two percent of the cereals reviewed featured some kind of health or nutritional claim, most brands only featured one. Made with whole grains and all natural influenced respondents perception of taste the most.For the most part, consumers responded much more positively to the presence of good things as opposed to the absence of something bad. A sort of decep tive domino effect ensues as a result of this kind of marketing. When consumers see certain keywords, they often make erroneous assumptions in their head.Even if a breakfast cereal doesnt make a categorical claim about weight loss properties or other health aspects, positivenutritional buzz words will belie these impressions in the buyers mind. Moreover, the studys co-author, Prof. Pierre Chandon, observed that even the positive claims explicitly mentioned on the Front Of Package label rarely accurately reflected the products ingredients. or their impact on weight loss.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people