Nancy M. Childs

Foods that help prevent disease: consumer attitudes and public policy implications

States that over half of the adult US population (55 percent) believes in the disease‐preventative properties of natural foods such as fruits, vegetables and cereal grains. Consumer belief in the nutraceutical category has increased significantly in the past two years. The segmented nature of consumer beliefs, interest, and product preference in this new nutritional category suggest a more targeted approach to pubic health education policy, as well as marketing plans, when introducing consumers to the preventative health advantages of such foods.

Functional Foods: Consumer Attitudes, Perceptions, and Behaviors in a Growing Market

C B J From health reform to the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative tackling childhood obesity to the release of he 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Amercans, nutrition and health are top isues among health professionals, policyakers, and consumers. Like never efore, food and nutrition practitioers, including registered dietitians nd dietetic technicians, registered, ave been identified as critical to conumers’ success in building healthful iets. And Americans are primed for ctionable advice about improving heir health through food and nutriion according to research from the nternational Food Information Concil (IFIC). Consumer interest in foods that rovide health and wellness benefits, r functional foods, is thriving. Reent market data show that, even in a hallenged economy, the market for unctional foods and beverages has utpaced the growth of the total US ood and beverage market by a wide argin. The US functional food maret was valued at more than

Consumer Perceptions of Graded, Graphic and Text Label Presentations for Qualified Health Claims

37 bilion in 2009, representing about 6% of he total food and beverage market 1). Availability of health-promoting

Review of Food Policy and Consumer Issues of Mercury in Fish

On December 18, 2002, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the Consumer Health Information for Better Nutrition Initiative. The initiatives goal is to make available more and better information about conventional foods and dietary supplements to help Americans improve their health and reduce risk of disease by making sound dietary decisions. It included a rating system to assess the “weight of the publicly available evidence.” It assigns one of four ranked levels to the claim thus resulting in qualified health claims. Two phases of research were conducted by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation. Qualitative research to assess consumer understanding, vocabulary, and familiarity with claims helped with the design and orientation of the second quantitative research phase. The quantitative phase employed a Web-based survey. The claim formats included: report card graphic, report card text, embedded claim text, point-counterpoint, structure/function claim, and nutrient content claim. Respondents were asked to rate the product for perceived strength of scientific evidence provided to support the claim, and questions about the products perceived healthfulness, quality, safety, and purchase intent. Consumers found it difficult to discriminate across four levels and showed inclination to project the scientific validity grade onto other product attributes. Consumers showed preference for simpler messages.

Racial Stereotypes in Children's Television Commercials

Public health messages regarding seafood consumption are confounded by long standing dietary advice promoting the healthfulness of consuming fish and recent warnings concerning dangerous mercury levels in specified fish. The warnings vary by federal agency and are directed to vulnerable subpopulations, notably women of childbearing age, pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children. The issue of mercury in fish has received considerable media coverage, attention from consumer organizations and public policy review. The net result is an area of seemingly contradictory advice directed to consumers and health professionals on the type and quantity of fish safe to consume. This message that fish is nutritious and healthy is particularly understood by educated and affluent subpopulations who can afford a variety of fish in their diet. This review addresses the contradictory rhetoric and reviews the state and federal agency policy positions. It considers the arguments for and against disclosing mercury-related information and its anticipated impact on the extended health benefits of fish consumption versus the risk to vulnerable subpopulations. The issue of balancing and targeting healthy messages and dietary warnings on fish is important because within the U.S. childbearing population, it is conservatively estimated that 250,000 women may be exposing their fetuses to higher levels of methylmercury than is in federal public health guidelines; two million more may not be consuming enough low-mercury fish.

Gender in food advertising to children: boys eat first

ABSTRACT In our increasingly diverse society, children are deeply engaged in television viewing and their consumption of television programming varies by ethnicity. Ethnic portrayal in childrens advertising is an important public policy and self-regulatory topic that may influence childrens self-perception and brand perception. This research examines frequency of ethnic representation, as assessed by the proportionality criterion and type of role portrayals by ethnically stereotyped groups in 155 childrens commercials. Results indicate that all diverse ethnicities were underrepresented compared to Caucasians. Ethnic representation is also examined by advertised product category, ethnic interaction, and importance of role portrayed by ethnic characters.

Nutraceutical Industry Trends

Examines advertisers’ use of gender in food advertising to children. Previous studies of gender preference in children’s advertising suggest gender bias exists. Food products are most often gender‐neutral. Advertising for food products is compared to non‐food advertisements. Examines measures of voice‐over gender, gender of dominant product user, gender of main character, activity level, aggressive behavior level, and soundtrack volume. A sample of food advertisements to children exhibits greater gender preference in presentation than the comparison sample of non‐food advertisements to children. This suggests that food advertising should consider gender bias among other factors when proceeding with self‐regulation of children’s advertising.

New Coke, Mixture Perception and the 'Flavor Balance Hypothesis'

ABSTRACT The nutraceutical environment is emerging as the number one food industry trend in the United States and the world, as strong consumer, demographic, and international trends combine with nutritional and nutraceutical advances in medical science, and the food, pharmaceutical, and dietary supplement industries take note of the opportunity. This market trend is taking shape in the wake of a complex interplay of factors in many different sectors: accelerating scientific discovery, consumer trends that follow the aging of the “baby boomer” birth cohort, proliferating governmental nutritional policy, health care industry trends, food industry marketing, pharmaceutical industry trends, and differential international factors support for nutraceuticals.

Is it Time to Rethink Nutrition Communications? A 5-Year Retrospective of Americans' Attitudes toward Food, Nutrition, and Health

Abstract The Coca-Cola Company’s 1985 decision to change the formula of Coca-Cola is examined in the context of “mixture perception”—that domain of psychophysics, which deals with the taste of substances in mixtures. The decision-making process at Coca-Cola is discussed, and the presence of an alternative strategy that was rejected is revealed—a “gradualist approach,” which would have changed the formula in a series of small steps, without announcing the change. A working hypothesis that was invoked (but never tested) to reject the gradualist approach is also revealed—the flavor balance hypothesis (FBH). The FBH asserted that, due to mixture perception, one of the physically small changes of the gradualist approach would be perceptually large and detectable. A test of the FBH using new Coke (aka Coke II) and the original formula (Coke classic) is reported. The results suggest that the FBH was invalid for Coke versus new Coke, and that The Coca-Cola Company could have successfully used the gradualist approach, unannounced. The strategic product management implications of the FBH versus the gradualist approach are discussed for other cases of successful and unsuccessful formula changes.

Food advertising on children's television

T ODAY’S CONSUMERS ARE AT the center of a perplexing and changing nutrition environment, particularly when it comes to eating healthfully and reducing health risks associated with overweight and obesity.With instant access to information, itmight seem that Americans have “knowledge” literally at their fingertips, yet evidence suggests that they are not acting on this knowledge when it comes to making decisions about food and health. Insights revealed from the first 5 years (2006-2010) of the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation’s Food & Health Survey: Consumer Attitudes Toward Food Safety, Nutrition & Health suggest that, although food and health communicationsmay have fostered general awareness, a disconnect remains among