Anytime I come across a documentary about food or nutrition on a streaming service, it causes me to pause and take a second look. Lately, I’ve avoided watching these types of programs because they often raise my frustration level, particularly ones that rely on fear rather than facts or are extremely one sided.
On this particular Sunday morning, I wasn’t in control of the TV remote, my husband was. When he asked if I minded watching this documentary “Holy Chicken!”, I sat myself down on the couch with my breakfast and coffee to join him, fully expecting to hear about chicken bashing and the evils of eating animals…but I was pleasantly surprised.
“Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!”
This 2019 movie is the sequel to the 2004 movie “Super Size Me”. In “Super size Me”, the creator Morgan Spurlock focused on the influence of the fast food industry and what happened to his health when he ate a diet of only McDonald’s for an entire month. In “Holy Chicken!” he takes a farm to table look at the fast food chicken industry. He takes the viewer along for the ride as he looks into whether fast food is healthier than before, learns about the fast food business, and tries to put all this together to open his own successful fast food restaurant.
Now I am by no means a chicken expert; I’ve never visited a chicken farm, or talked to chicken farmers here in Canada so I have no idea if the experiences in this US based movie are the same as in Canada. My main interest was how the movie illustrated how the restaurant industry uses various strategies to get you to buy their products.
Fast food restaurants have been around for-ev-er. And like any business, they want to make money. In the movie, they show how many potential owners hire consultants to perform trend analysis, menu development and marketing to maximize the chances that you, the consumer, will choose them for your next meal.
Customers want to feel good about their food choices.
With so much focus on health these days, many customers want to feel good about their food choices. In response, restaurants need to make changes to keep your business. Does this translate into healthier menu items? Not necessarily. So how do they convince you to buy their product and eat out more?
They latch on to the customer’s desire to “feel better about their food choices” with carefully developed marketing strategies to influence customer purchases, sometimes without them even knowing it. One of these strategies is using Health Halos as part of their marketing.
What are Health Halos?
When you think of a halo, you think of something being good. The halo effect is when a positive impression formed from a single trait or characteristic is permitted to influence the judgement of unrelated factors. For example, assuming someone who is likeable is also smart and competent.
With a health halo, a consumer is drawn to a positive characteristic of a product, and forms an overall healthful impression for that product, even though there is little or no evidence to back this up.
There are various types of health halos.
Food-related Health Halos
Think of the way food is presented in a fast food restaurant.
“Freshly Made”, “Crisp” lettuce. “Garden fresh” vegetables, “Hand-cut!”, “All natural!”, “Artisanal style!”, “Freshly cracked” eggs, “without artificial colors and flavors”.
All of these bring up thoughts of foods that are simple, healthy, not overly processed that may be a better choice nutrition wise. These words, while very enticing, provide you with no factual information about the nutrient content of that menu item.
In terms of food related health halos, studies suggest that health halo marketing often leads a customer to overestimate the nutrient quality of their food as well as encourage them to eat more.
What about “chicken raised without antibiotics”?
This descriptor means that the chicken was not treated in any way with antibiotics. However, if chicken doesn’t have this description, this doesn’t necessarily mean that antibiotics were used in raising them and it doesn’t mean the meat is any less safe to eat. Even if antibiotics were used, there are strict regulations which dictate how much time must pass between when the animal was last treated with antibiotics and when it is sent to the processing plant to ensure there aren’t residues in the meat.
And then there are words not used.….
How often do you see words like “crispy” instead of “deep-fried”? Why is that?
That’s because “deep fried” brings you thoughts of fat and greasiness.
“Crispy” appeals to ours senses and thoughts of texture and glosses over the fact it still deep fried. Sometimes with chicken burgers they completely skip over “crispy” and just call in a chicken sandwich even though it you can easily see it is crispy and fried.
Value-based Health Halos
With the value-based halo, a consumer uses ethical base claims such as organic, local, and fair trade as a positive attribute for the item and infers that is better choice. Studies suggest that while customers may make choices for ethical reasons, they also may infer the choice is overall more healthy or safe even though there is no objective evidence to support this. For this reason, it’s important to understand exactly what these terms mean.
Organic: The principle goal is to develop operations that are sustainable and harmonious with the environment. Neither this standard, nor the organic products produced in accordance with this standard, represent specific claims about the healthiness, safety and nutrition of such organic products.
Fair trade: Means it supports sustainable development in the developing world by setting standards that ensure that the conditions of production of all certified products are socially and economically fair, environmental responsible and promote the improvement of the livelihood of developing world farmers and workers.
Local: Is defined as food produced in the province or territory in which it is sold or food sold across provincial borders within 50 km of the originating province or territory. Buying local has the benefit of supporting local businesses and farms, but the nutritional content is not necessarily higher.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Health Halos
This is when businesses engage in activities to enhance their corporate reputations with stakeholders and consumers. The company develops a reputation that they are committed to stakeholder/consumer interests and prioritize a range of issues beyond profit. This caring and compassionate image, donations to charity, motivation to enhance the welfare of others and preserve the environment can lead to consumers perceiving their food products as more healthful than a company with a more neutral reputation.
Research has demonstrated that corporate reputation for CSR can lead to an underestimation of calorie content and overconsumption, even in the presence of nutritional information. Consumers, believing they are choosing healthy and safe products, may eat more under the false assumption they are making healthy choices.
So how are these health halos used to influence my choices?
You will notice “Healthy” or “Value-based” wording used on menus as well as websites, and advertising.
Ever take a look what is written on your food wrappers or bags?
How about the art murals on the wall of your favorite fast-food restaurant? Their website?
They may use words to induce a “feeling” about eating in their restaurant or how they want you to “feel” about your food choices. It may not relate to the nutrition quality of your choices.
They may “tell you about their corporate story” to showcase how they differ from their competitors and contribute to the community. Does this give you a warm and fuzzy about the company? It’s meant to.
All of this is meant make you feel good about your eating experience …right down to your food choices.
Balance and Moderation is the key.
For health reasons, we encourage people to prepare foods with healthy ingredients and choose healthier menu options more often in order to limit highly processed foods. Highly processed foods add a lot of excess sodium, sugar, and fat to the diet.
We like to go to fast food restaurants for various reasons. It can be quick and convenient; we may have a craving or we may just decide that’s what we want to choose for that meal.
So in order to limit highly processed food, like fast food, might I suggest that you try to:
- Eat them less often
- Eat them in small amounts
- Or replace them with healthier options.
If you do decide to go to a fast food restaurant, try to recognize the difference between healthy choices and when foods are “being marketed to you”. Decide whether a food is healthy by using nutritional content info instead of relying on marketing messaging alone.
By learning about food marketing strategies and how they affect your decisions, you can at least make your food choice an informed one.
For more information, check out the following websites:
- Chicken and Chicken Farming in Canada:
Chicken.ca | Raised by a Canadian Farmer
Chat Soon!
Lynda, RD
IOC Diploma in Sports Nutrition
Eaters' Digest 