The Effectiveness of “Emolabeling” to Promote Healthy Food Choices in Children Preschool Through 5th Grade
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4247.2014.03.01.5Keywords:
Emoticons, Emolabeling, Food Choice, Health, Literacy, ChildhoodAbstract
Obesity has become a growing global concern. Evidence indicates that ecological factors are most predictive of obesity among children, and that a new strategy, referred to as emolabeling, may effectively address ecological factors, although the extent to which it can influence food choice is not yet known, but tested here. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that children aged 3 to 11 years will use emolabels, or emotional correlates of health (i.e. healthy-happy, unhealthy-sad), to make healthy food choices. A cross-sectional design was used with two phases. In Phase 1, children were taught how to use emolabels with a “faces of health” lesson. In Phase 2, children made choices between containers that were laid out on a large table in pairs and varied by taste (tastes good, no information), social norms (popular, not popular), branding (image of a minion, no image), or preference (told what food was in each container). A control pair was labeled with only emoticons. The order and presentation of the containers were counterbalanced for each variation. Results showed that a significant proportion of children in the pre-literacy and the early literacy grades used emoticons to specifically make healthy food choices in each variation (p < .05 for all tests), except when children were told what foods were in the containers. In all, emolabeling effectively influenced food choices for healthy foods among children aged 3 to 11 years, more so than labeling for taste, social norms, and branding, but not preference.
References
Kochanek KD, Xu J, Murphy SL, Miniño AM, Kung H-C. Deaths: Final data for 2009. Natl Vital Statist Rep 2011; 60(3): 1-116.
Eckel RH. Obesity and heart disease: A statement for healthcare professionals from the Nutrition Committee, American Heart Association. Circulation 1997; 96: 3248-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/01.CIR.96.9.3248
Finucane MM, Stevens GA, Cowan MJ, et al. National, regional, and global trends in body-mass index since 1980: Systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 960 country-years and 9.1 million participants. Lancet 2011; 377(9765): 557-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)62037-5
Flegal KM, Williamson DF, Pamuk ER, Rosenberg HM. Estimating deaths attributable to obesity in the United States. Am J Public Health 2004; 94(9): 1486-89. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.94.9.1486
Ogden C, Carroll M. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents: United States, trends 1963-1965 through 2007-2008. Retrieved on June 4, 2012 from http://www.cdc.gov/ nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_07_08/obesity _child_07_08. htm.
Bishop J, Middendorf R, Babin T, Tilson W. ASPE research brief: Childhood obesity. Retrieved on November 13, 2013 from http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/child_obesity/index. cfm.
Fernandez JR, Klimentidis YC, Dulin-Keita A, Casazza K. Genetic influences in childhood obesity: Recent progress and recommendations for experimental designs. Int J Obes 2012; 36(4): 479-84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2011.236
Mair R, McGarvey ST. Application of genetic epidemiology to understanding pediatric obesity. In: Jelalian E, Steele RC, Eds. Handbook of childhood and adolescent obesity. New York: Springer Science + Business Media 2008; pp. 163-179.
Lobstein T, Baur LA, Jackson-Leach R. The childhood obesity epidemic. In: Waters E, Swinburn B, Seidell J, Uauy R, Eds. Preventing childhood obesity: Evidence, policy, and practice. New York: Wiley-Blackwell 2010; pp. 3-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444318517.ch1
Brennan L, Castro S, Brownson RC, Claus J, Orleans CT. Accelerating evidence reviews and broadening evidence standards to identify effective, promising, and emerging policy and environmental strategies for prevention of childhood obesity. Ann Rev Public Health 2011; 32: 199-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031210-101206
Boonpleng W, Park CG, Gallo AM, Carte C, McCreary L, Bergren MD. Ecological influences of early childhood obesity: A multilevel analysis. West J Nurs Res 2013; 35: 742-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0193945913480275
Baker DW. The meaning and the measure of health literacy. J General Inter Med 2006; 21: 878-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00540.x
Ad Hoc Committee on Health Literacy Health literacy: Report of the council on scientific affairs. J Am Med Assoc 1999; 281: 552-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.281.6.552
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010: Understanding and improving health, Chapter 11, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 2010.
Institute of Medicine. Health literacy: A prescription to end confusion. Washington, DC: National Academies Press 2004.
Privitera GJ, Vogel SI, Antonelli DE. Performance on a health assessment using emoticons with pre-literacy-aged children. Am J Educ Res 2013; 1(3): 110-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.12691/education-1-3-9
Visser N, Alant E, Harty M. Which graphic symbols do 4-year-old children choose to represent each of the four basic emotions? Augment Alternat Commun 2008; 24: 302-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07434610802467339
Bradley MM, Lang PJ. Measuring emotion: The Self-Assessment Manikin and the semantic differential. J Behav Therapy Exper Psychiatry 1994; 25: 49-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9
Kuczmarski RJ, Ogden C, Guo SS, et al. CDC growth charts for the United States: Methods and development. Vital Health Statist 2002; 11(246): 1-190.
Kuczaj SA. Evidence for language learning strategy: On the relative ease of acquisition of prefixes and suffixes. Child Develop 1979; 50: 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1979.tb02972.x
Smetana JG. Social domain theory: Consistencies and variations in children’s social and moral judgments. In: Killen M, Smetana JG, Eds. Handbook of Moral Development, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum 2006; pp. 69-91.
Privitera GJ. Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications 2014.
Birch LL. Preschool children’s food preferences and consumption patterns. J Nutr Educ 1979; 11(4): 189-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-3182(79)80025-4
Rasmussen M, Krølner R, Klepp K-I, et al. Determinants of fruit and vegetable consumption among children and adolescents. A review of the literature. Part I. Quantitative studies. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Activity 2006; 3: 22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-3-22
Privitera GJ. The psychological dieter: It’s not all about the calories. Lanham, MD: University Press of America 2008.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Policy for Journals/Articles with Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work
Policy for Journals / Manuscript with Paid Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Publisher retain copyright .
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work .