How do we get Teenagers to Shun Junk Food?

By telling them the truth! A study from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business found that explaining the truth behind fast food / junk food advertising strategies has an inoculating effect against their effectiveness. Basically, the study compared the traditional method of explaining good food choices (eat your veggies!) versus educating teens on the extremely effective marketing techniques used by large companies to sell their products. The idea is to tap into a teenagers natural tendency to rebel against authority, and it seemed to work (although more for males)! They found a 30% decrease in the purchasing of unhealthy drinks. The truth will set you free! Follow this link to get a basic idea of common strategies used in visual advertisement https://visme.co/blog/visual-advertising-techniques/

REFERENCES

[Nature] A values-alignment intervention protects adolescents from the effects of food marketing https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0586-6