NCT02618174

Enhanced Broccoli Consumption After a Liking Norm and Vegetable Variety Message: Effects After a 24 Hour Delay.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 400 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Birmingham · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Encouraging individuals to eat vegetables is difficult. However, recent evidence suggests that using social-based information might help. For instance, it has been shown that if people think that others are eating lots of fruit and vegetables, that they will consume more of these foods to match the 'norm'. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a liking social norm (information about how much others like vegetables) would be effective at encouraging people to eat more vegetables and to examine whether these effects are sustained beyond initial exposure (i.e. whether the effect of the norm persists on food selection 24 hours alter).

Detailed description

Using a 2 x 5 x 2 experimental design we investigated the effects of exposure to various messages on later food intake and whether any effects were sustained 24 hours after exposure in both low and high consumers of vegetables. There were three factors of delay (immediate food selection versus food selection 24 hours after exposure), message type (liking norm, descriptive norm, health message, food-based control, and neutral control message) and habitual consumption (low versus high). The buffet consisted of three raw vegetables, three energy-dense foods and two dips. In this study the investigators hypothesised that a liking norm would increase the consumption of vegetables (compared to a neutral control condition) and that the effect would persist on vegetable consumption 24 hours after intital exposure to the liking norm.

Conditions

• Eating Behaviour

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Neutral Control Condition	Message about age of University of Birmingham
BEHAVIORAL	Food-based Control Condition	Message about variety of vegetables in the world
BEHAVIORAL	Health Condition	Message about the health benefits of eating vegetables
BEHAVIORAL	Descriptive Social Norm	Message suggesting most people eat plenty of vegetables
BEHAVIORAL	Liking Social Norm	Message suggesting most people like eating vegetables

Timeline

• Start date: 2013-10-01
• Primary completion: 2014-07-01
• Completion: 2014-07-01
• First posted: 2015-12-01
• Last updated: 2015-12-01

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Kingdom