Regulatory Fit Effects on Children's Responses to Healthy Eating Promotion: An Experiment Testing Message and Celebrity Fit

Abstract

This study adopts the regulatory fit theory and examines the effects of the celebrity and message fit on children's responses to the promotion of healthy eating. A 2 × 2 experiment was conducted with 87 Hong Kong children ages 11 to 16. The results showed that a regulatory fit between the celebrity focus and the message focus yielded a better affective response. Specifically, children found a poster ad more convincing, liked it more, held more positive feelings, and found the poster ad more interesting in the fit conditions. Implications and future research directions were discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• regulatory fit
• celebrity
• children
• obesity
• healthy eating
• health promotion

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Professor Kara Chan of the Communication Studies Department, Hong Kong Baptist University, for supervising the project. He also thanks Miss Janis Chu and Miss Dilys Wong for assisting in the data collection, and Mr. Kinn Wong and Mr. Desman Tang for developing the materials for the study.