Michael D. Basil

Why Americans Eat What They Do: Taste, Nutrition, Cost, Convenience, and Weight Control Concerns as Influences on Food Consumption

OBJECTIVE To examine the self-reported importance of taste, nutrition, cost, convenience, and weight control on personal dietary choices and whether these factors vary across demographic groups, are associated with lifestyle choices related to health (termed health lifestyle), and actually predict eating behavior. DESIGN Data are based on responses to 2 self-administered cross-sectional surveys. The main outcomes measured were consumption of fruits and vegetables, fast foods, cheese, and breakfast cereals, which were determined on the basis of responses to questions about usual and recent consumption and a food diary. SUBJECTS/SETTING Respondents were a national sample of 2,967 adults. Response rates were 71% to the first survey and 77% to the second survey (which was sent to people who completed the first survey). STATISTICAL ANALYSES Univariate analyses were used to describe importance ratings, bivariate analyses (correlations and t tests) were used to examine demographic and lifestyle differences on importance measures, and multivariate analyses (general linear models) were used to predict lifestyle cluster membership and food consumption. RESULTS Respondents reported that taste is the most important influence on their food choices, followed by cost. Demographic and health lifestyle differences were evident across all 5 importance measures. The importance of nutrition and the importance of weight control were predicted best by subjects membership in a particular health lifestyle cluster. When eating behaviors were examined, demographic measures and membership in a health lifestyle cluster predicted consumption of fruits and vegetables, fast foods, cheese, and breakfast cereal. The importance placed on taste, nutrition, cost, convenience, and weight control also predicted types of foods consumed. APPLICATIONS Our results suggest that nutritional concerns, per sc, are of less relevance to most people than taste and cost. One implication is that nutrition education programs should attempt to design and promote nutritious diets as being tasty and inexpensive.

Identification as a mediator of celebrity effects

Considerable research has been devoted to the effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer behavior. Most of the research has examined credibility or attractiveness as a determinant of message effectiveness, A review of Burke, Kelman, and Banduras theories suggests that there may be another critical factor underlying celebrity effects — identification. A review of previous research results suggests that identification may be a viable explanation for the effectiveness of celebrity endorsers. A test of the identification effect was probed by examining peoples personal concern, perceived risk, and sexual behaviors a year after Magic Johnsons announcement that he tested positive for HIV. The results of this study indicate that identification mediates message effects. This finding has important implications for media campaigns. It suggests that a spokesperson with whom the audience identifies insures the greatest likelihood of achieving lasting attitude or behavior change.

College students’ news gratifications, media use, and current events knowledge

This study tests uses and gratifications theory with 1209 college students. The results find that students’ media use and surveillance needs increase with year in college. Consistent with uses and gratifications theory, demographic differences and the gratifications sought drive news media use. More precisely, increasing surveillance needs results in increased use of all news media, while entertainment needs result in television news and CNN viewing. Only print media and CNN use, however, are related to current events knowledge.

The influence of famous athletes on health beliefs and practices: Mark McGwire, child abuse prevention, and androstenedione

When Mark McGwire broke Roger Mariss home run record in September of 1998, he was instantly declared an American hero and held up as a positive role model for teenagers and young adults. The extensive media attention focused on McGwire made the general public aware of his use of a muscle-building dietary supplement, Androstenedione. It also increased the publics awareness of McGwires public service to prevent child abuse. The present research assesses audience involvement with McGwire through parasocial interaction and identification, and the effects of that involvement on audience knowledge of and attitudes toward Androstenedione and child abuse prevention. Results indicate parasocial interaction with an athlete regarded as a public role model likely leads to audience identification with that person, which in turn promotes certain attitudes and beliefs. In this case, parasocial interaction and identification with Mark McGwire was strongly associated with knowledge of Androstenedione, intended use of the supplement, and concern for child abuse. Implications of this research for featuring celebrities in health communication campaigns are discussed.

Factors influencing healthy eating habits among college students: an application of the Health Belief model

Poor eating habits are an important public health issue that has large health and economic implications. Many food preferences are established early, but because people make more and more independent eating decisions as they move through adolescence, the transition to independent living during the university days is an important event. To study the phenomenon of food selection, the heath belief model was applied to predict the likelihood of healthy eating among university students. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the validity of the health belief model (HBM) among 194 students, followed by gender-based analyses. The data strongly supported the HBM. Social change campaign implications are discussed.

Multiple Resource Theory I Application to Television Viewing

Comprehending television is a complex process. Multiple resource theory proposes that the necessary resources are limited. Limitations, however, depend on four separate factors. First, resources are used by three different tasks—attention, meaning-level processing, and memory. Demands arise from individual tasks and combinations. The consequences of reaching limitations are different for each task. Second, televisions auditory and visual modalities use different symbol systems. Audio information might be more difficult to process and requires more resources. Third, television stimuli might contain the meaningful information in either the auditory or visual modality. Meaningful information might require more processing and resources and should result in resource shifts. Fourth, television programs use varying levels of redundancy. Whereas processing two modalities generally requires additional resources, actual demands depend on the level and nature of the redundancy. As a result of these four factors, resource limitations can inhibit one process, modality, or attribute. Systematic study of these outcomes is necessary.

Attention, Resource Allocation, and Communication Research: What Do Secondary Task Reaction Times Measure, Anyway?

This chapter refines the conceptual and operational definitions underlying secondary task reaction times (STRTs) in an attempt to clarify exactly what STRTs measure. The intent is to make the measure more useful to researchers studying changes in attention and effort during communication activities. Perusal of the communication literature yields four frequently stated operational definitions of what STRTs measure: (a) the resources required by a message, (b) the resources allocated to the message, (c) the resources available for processing, and (d) the resources remaining in the system. It is demonstrated that these pieces of the resource pie do not always covary. It is suggested that the published research best supports the interpretation of STRTs as available resources. However, interpreting STRTs as available resources cannot explain instances found in the literature where STRTs are fast and memory for messages is slow. A further modification of the model is proposed that involves integrating the limit...

Interpersonal Communication in News Diffusion: A Study of “Magic” Johnson's Announcement

A meta-analysis of thirty-four news diffusion studies shows that the general importance of a story is positively associated with the level of diffusion and likelihood of hearing the news interpersonally, but not the rate of telling others. A second study examined the spread of the news of “Magic” Johnsons positive HIV test. Results indicate that personal importance affected whether a person tells others. These findings identify the important role of individuals and the importance of the news in the diffusion process. News that is personally relevant to an individual is more likely to be discussed with others.

Parasocial interaction and identification: social change processes for effective health interventions.

Two primary foci of health communication are discovering how people seek out and interpret health information and seeking ways to encourage people to make healthy choices. During the past couple of decades, health communication scholars and practitioners have focused increased attention on the role of celebrities in promoting health (Brown, Basil, & Bocarnea, 2003; Brown & deMatviuk, 2010). Lerner (2006) and Bae, Brown, & Kang (in press), for example, explain how news coverage of celebrities can draw people into public health issues. When celebrities have major health problems, like Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s contraction of HIV, Michael J. Fox’s battle with Parkinson’s disease, and Patrick Swayze’s fight with pancreatic cancer, the news media provide extensive coverage, exposing millions of people to important health information. Even health procedures, like Katie Couric’s screening for colon cancer, can provide the public with lifesaving information (Cram et al., 2003). When people are exposed to news regarding celebrity health issues, how are they affected by these stories? Can a celebrity “personalize” a health issue to the public? These two fundamental questions have been addressed by two powerful theories of social influence: parasocial interaction and identification. Horton and Wohl’s (1956) seminal work based on their observation of parasocial relationships between television personalities and audience members launched hundreds of studies during the next five decades,

Use of photography and video in observational research

Purpose – This review aims to examine how photography and video have been used in a variety of fields.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines how these visual methods have and can be used in marketing.Findings – Photography and video have important strengths. They help us overcome the typically fleeting nature of observation. They also allow us to record behavior in its situational context, allow for reflection, informants, coding, and use of the behavior or situation for illustration. In addition to their analysis of behavior, visual methods can also be used for the purpose of analysis of environments. Photographs and videos can also reveal insights into the interpretive side of the equation – examining peoples focus and interpretation of their behaviors and rituals. This visual information can be qualitative – aiming for naturalistic, descriptive, and “rich” data; they can also be used to quantitatively measure circumstances and events.Originality/value – Understanding the potential uses of ph...