Can the “Future Self” Promote Healthy Eating Behaviors?: The Effects of Age-Morphing Technology, Future Projections, and Self-Control on Healthy Eating Decisions

Abstract

Age-morphing technology has received scholarly and professional attention as potential strategic tools that enable people to vividly experience certain issues. This study examined the impacts of age-progression technology and the valence of future projection on healthy eating behaviors in relation to self-control levels by suggesting certain emotions (i.e., anger and disgust vs. sadness and fear) about future outcomes as underlying mechanism. In Experiment 1 (n = 138), age-morphed images led people to make healthier food choices. For people with high self-control, seeing age-morphed images led to less intention to support a health campaign. In Experiment 2 (n = 140), people who exhibited low self-control chose healthier foods when seeing a negatively projected age-morphed image rather than a positively projected one. Among different emotional responses, sadness served as a moderated mediator that encouraged people with low levels of self-control to make healthier food choices. This research expands self-control literature and appraisal theory by exploring the potential of technology for healthy eating behaviors.

Data availability statement

The research stimuli, questionnaire, and data of this research are available via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/gjm6w/).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Only participants who were randomly assigned to the age-morphed image condition received a bonus as a compensation for their extra time and work to experience an age-morphed image using the application.

2 A priori power analysis with G* power found that a sample size of 128 is satisfactory to achieve 80% power levels with a medium effect size at .05 alpha level in this experimental setting.

3 The Qualtrics survey questionnaires including detailed instruction and stimuli are shared through OSF (https://osf.io/gjm6w/).

4 Healthy eating was defined as follows: “Around one third of what you eat each day should be fruit and vegetables, one third should be bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice, and one third should be split between milk and dairy products, and meat, fish, pulses, etc. Fatty foods (e.g., chips, crisps) and sugary foods (e.g., cake, sweets) should be kept to a minimum.” (Payne et al., 2004, p. 493). Therefore, participants were asked to how much intention they had for healthy eating.

5 Like Experiment 1, a priori power analysis with G*Power was used to identify whether the sample size was satisfactory. According to the result, at least 128 participants were needed to accomplish 80% power level with a medium effect size and 0.05 alpha level.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the faculty research fund of Sejong University in 2020.

Notes on contributors

Ah Ram Lee

Ah Ram Lee is an assistant professor in Journalism Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research interests focus on communicative use of technology and digital media to reduce individual’s psychological distance from diverse social issues, such as child poverty, war refugee, ageism, and recycling.

Jung Won Chun

Jung Won Chun is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Sejong University, South Korea. Her research interests include public empowerment via new media, online strategic communication, and new technology effects on public engagement and well-being.