Unhealthy food preferences: A psychological consequence of poverty?

• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Author: Dominic Thomas
• Date: 01 June 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12422

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Unhealthy food preferences: A psychological

consequence of poverty?

Dominic Thomas

Department of Marketing, Monash

University, Caulfield East, Victoria,

Australia

Correspondence

Dominic Thomas, Department of

Marketing, Monash University, PO Box

197, Caulfield East, Victoria 3145,

Australia.

Email: dominic.thomas@monash.edu

Abstract

Drawing on the literature on the psychological

consequences of poverty, this paper examines whether

stress explains poor people's stronger preferences for

unhealthy food and whether self-affirmation mitigates

stress and reduces unhealthy food preferences. Through a

quasiexperimental field study of patrons of a community

kitchen, we show that poor people (vs. controls) prefer

more unhealthy food and, more importantly, that chronic

stress mediates the relationship between poverty and

unhealthy food preferences. A second quasiexperimental

study of poor residents of a home for homeless people

replicates this effect for actual unhealthy food choices.

A final online study reveals that a social-psychological

self-affirmation intervention mitigates poor people's

experienced stress, which in turn helps reduce unhealthy

food preferences. The discussion focuses on how managing

stress through timely interventions such as self-affirmation

can improve poor people's unhealthy food preferences.

Finally, policy implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS

poverty, public policy, self-affirmation, stress, unhealthy eating

1|INTRODUCTION

Obesity is an epidemic that is affecting both developed and developing countries worldwide.

Nearly one in six children and more than one in two adults are either obese or overweight in

Received: 23 November 2020 Revised: 13 August 2021 Accepted: 15 October 2021

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12422

© 2021 American Council on Consumer Interests.

J Consum Aff. 2022;56:613–639. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca 613

the OECD countries (OECD, 2017). In 2019, the World Health Organization estimated that

approximately 38.2 million children under the age of 5 years were overweight or obese. Unfor-

tunately, the prevalence of overweight and obesity, which are often considered problems of

high-income countries, is increasing in low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2020). For

example, in Africa, the number of overweight children under 5 increased by nearly 24% from

2000 to 2019. In Asia, nearly half of the children under 5 were overweight or obese in 2019

(WHO, 2020). The upsurge in obesity numbers globally has led policymakers to develop mea-

sures such as nutrition labeling, media campaigns on healthy eating behaviors, and restrictions

on unhealthy food advertising. However, governments need to pay more attention to under-

standing the relationship between poverty and obesity. There is a need to introduce effective

interventions not only in high-income countries but also in lower-middle- and upper-middle-

income countries (Templin et al., 2019).

A critical way to counter obesity is to identify and target groups at high risk of obesity with

interventions (Karnani et al., 2016), for example, children with obesity (Bleich et al., 2018).

Prior population-based studies have revealed the relationship between poverty and obesity

(Drewnowski & Specter, 2004; Salmasi & Celidoni, 2017). One stream of studies examines the

effects of poor people's situational characteristics, for example, low education and income

(Devaux & Sassi, 2011) and economic constraints (Daniel, 2016), on the development and

perpetuation of obesity. A second stream linking poverty and obesity investigated where poor

people live and neighborhood effects (Levine, 2011). The neighborhoods where poor people live

encourage the consumption of unhealthy foods and a less active lifestyle (Hill & Peters, 1998)

due to the concentration of fast-food restaurants (Reidpath et al., 2002) and a scarcity of play-

grounds, parks and other outdoor entertaining facilities (Booth et al., 2013). In addition, the

stigma of poverty—which position people in poverty as being lazy, indifferent and a burden to

society—can be a hurdle for poor people to seek benefits from public and nonprofit sectors

(Kissane, 2003). Levasseur (2019) summarizes this relationship between poverty and obesity

aptly when he states that it leads “to a vicious circle between poverty and weight gain: obesity

reduces the chance of schooling and/or professional success, obese people plunge or remain

into poverty, the poor have obesity-related lifestyles, and so on.”

Further, recent studies have linked poverty with psychological factors that can lead to

poorer choices (Haushofer & Fehr, 2014; Mani et al., 2013; Vohs, 2013). In particular, poverty

can lead to certain psychological consequences and economic behaviors that trap poor people

in a cycle of poverty (Haushofer, 2019). The results of previous studies show that poverty leads

to stress and negative feelings (Haushofer & Fehr, 2014), impairs cognitive capacities

(Vohs, 2013), saps attention and reduces efforts (Mani et al., 2013). These psychological conse-

quences may lead to risk-averse and short-sighted decision making. For example, Dalton

et al. (2020) examined the effects of acute stress on decision making through financial worries.

Recent studies have also linked economic scarcity and poorer childhoods to decision making

(Hamilton et al., 2019; Mittal & Griskevicius, 2016). Extending this stream of literature, the cur-

rent research examines whether people living in poverty are more likely to prefer unhealthy

food as the result of psychological consequences related to poverty. Specifically, we examine the

role of stress on respondents' food preferences and actual food choices.

Research has also revealed that the self-affirmation of poor individuals mitigates the nega-

tive effects of poverty by increasing executive control, fluid intelligence and the likelihood of

participation in benefit programs (Hall et al., 2014). Evidence also shows that self-affirmation

increases message acceptance, which encourages healthy behavior change (Epton &

Harris, 2008). More importantly, Cornil and Chandon (2013) showed that the unhealthy food

614 THOMAS