Many people who want to lose excess weight start a diet with consumption of lower calorie food. However, according to scientific health experts Jörg Königstörfer and Hans Baumgartner, food manufacturers and marketers are able to break the will of even the most serious abstainers by promoting their products as „fitness food“.
Researchers from the Technical University of Munich, Germany and Pennsylvania State University, USA conducted a study on the effect that foods branded as „fitness“ have on consumer behaviour. Students with an average age of 19 participated in the experiments. The final results were published in the university's Journal of Marketing Research.
For the first experiment, students were divided into two groups. All volunteers were given packets of raw nuts and dried fruit. The only difference was in the packaging - the first group had a very plain package (Trail Mix), while the second group had “fitness“ written on it, as well as a picture of training sneakers (Fitness Trail Mix).
As we all know, a mix of raw nuts and dried fruits is a healthy food, although it contains a rather large amount of calories. However, when such a mix of nuts comes in a package that has sports shoes and the word „fitness“ on it, it makes even students who follow a special diet eat more, as the figure below shows.
In another experiment, the same groups were subjected to a physical cycling test after being allowed to eat as much of the nut mix as they wanted. The result, also described in the table below, shows us that the group consuming the so-called „fitness mix“ performed worse on the physical test.
The study, conducted by American and German scientists, reminds us to be more careful when consuming „fitness foods“, especially when we want to get rid of extra weight. So the next time you stop to look at a food product that is marketed as “fitness“, you'd best check the calorie values listed on the back of the packet. That way, you'll be as sure as you can be about whether this food is suitable for your diet and avoid unwanted side effects from your healthy eating.
Source: Journal of Marketing Research
