I’m Lovin’ It: How Fast Food Advertising Influences Meat-Eating Preferences

Abstract

Overconsumption of red and processed meat is associated with a multitude of negative health outcomes. Previous research shows exposure to advertising messaging can influence dietary behaviors but research on the influence of meat advertising on diet, specifically, is scant. Theoretically informed by the Reasoned Action Approach, the present experiment randomly assigned participants to view a version of a print McDonald’s advertisement that included meat imagery (a Big Mac), non-meat imagery (French fries), or no food (just the McDonalds’ logo and slogan), which acted as a control. An online survey in the United States included 514 U.S. adults (M_age = 51 years). Participants exposed to meat imagery compared to the non-meat imagery reported a higher desire to eat meat. The meat imagery and control conditions were also significantly associated with increased cognitive accessibility of meat concepts, compared to when respondents were shown the no-meat condition. Desire to eat meat, but not the cognitive accessibility of meat concepts, was significantly associated with attitude, normative pressure, and perceived behavioral control for avoiding eating meat one day per week; these constructs predicted intention and willingness to avoid meat. Results indicate that exposure to meat imagery in advertising does have the potential to influence meat consumption behavior and also has implications for the use of meat imagery in persuasive messaging for public health campaigns.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical Statement

The methods were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and designated exempt by the Institutional Review Board at Michigan State University. Implied informed consent was obtained from all participants in the online survey through the statement “by clicking the ‘next’ button and continuing to the survey you are consenting to participate in this study.”

Authorship

ME and JP conceived of the experimental design and programmed the survey. ME performed statistical analyses and wrote the first draft of the paper. AB provided guidance in statistical analysis. All authors contributed to the experimental design and commented on the survey before data collection, and all authors provided edits and comments on the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This manuscript was funded in part by a pilot grant from the Health and Risk Communication Center at Michigan State University. The HRCC had no role in the design, analysis, or writing of this article.