Retailers use evidence-based strategies to encourage you to grab a soda at the checkout counter or two boxes of cookies for the price of one. You can use marketing and human behavior research to make healthy choices without much effort.
Inside the minds of consumers
Whether you reach for almond butter or butter, apples or apple crisp, sweet potatoes or potato chips when strolling through the grocery store is entirely up to you — right? Not quite, suggests a recent review of 18 studies on “food nudging,” which found that the placement of products and their proximity to consumers influences the likelihood we’ll choose them — for better or worse. But while retailers may use evidence-based strategies to encourage you to grab, say, a soda at the checkout counter or two boxes of cookies for the price of one, you, too, can use marketing and human behavior research to make healthy choices without much effort. Here are seven ways to succeed:
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In this Friday, June 12, 2015, photo, grocery shoppers browse an aisle at a local grocery store in the Little Havana area of Miami.
(AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
AP Photo/Alan Diaz
1. Prime yourself for healthy eating.
You’ve heard that a rumbling stomach and an empty grocery cart don’t bode well for making smart food choices, but that’s not entirely true, says David Just, a researcher at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab. In reality, an empty stomach is better than one stuffed with sweets or fatty foods. “If you eat a cookie right before you go, you’re going to buy a lot more impulsive stuff,” he explains. “You get in the mindset of eating frivolously, and it carries over as you shop.” If you snack on fruits or vegetables before your trip, however, your healthy streak will likely carry on.
(Getty Images/iStockphoto/SC Shots Studio SRL)
Getty Images/iStockphoto/SC Shots Studio SRL
2. Make a (good) list.
When you make a shopping list, do you include every item you plan to purchase or just write down the necessities and leave some room for spontaneity? While both methods tend to be healthier than shopping without a plan, since they minimize the chances you’ll be tempted by unhealthy displays or wander into aisles stacked with processed foods, the more prep work you can do, the better, says Just, who is also a professor at Cornell’s Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. He suggests taking stock of your kitchen before hitting the store: “If you know what you’re actually out of, you do a much better job.”
(Getty Images/iStockphoto/megaflopp)
Getty Images/iStockphoto/megaflopp
3. Bring a visual reminder.
If your refrigerator door is plastered with reminders of your health goals — say, to stop mindlessly eating or to reach for the fruit on the counter before opening the door — you already know the drill. Now, try applying that same technique to your grocery cart by taping a note to it that reminds you of your healthy shopping plan — even if it’s just writing the words “fruits and veggies,” suggest Collin Payne, associate professor of marketing at New Mexico State University. “Something as simple as that can nudge people toward making better decisions,” he says.
(Getty Images/iStockphoto/Serg_Velusceac)
Getty Images/iStockphoto/Serg_Velusceac
4. Ditch the kids.
Some supermarkets like Wegmans designate areas for kids; others offer baby-sitting. Services like those are “a huge benefit,” Just says, because kids are often prime targets of food-marketing tactics, and when they fall victim, so can you. “The more you shop with kids, the more you are prone to impulse-buying,” he says. What’s more, controlling, scolding or denying your kid’s cravings takes up valuable mental space that could be used to make healthy choices. Shopping solo, Payne adds, “leaves more cognitive resources available for you to actually think about what you’re purchasing.”
(Getty Images/iStockphoto/KatarinaGondova)
Getty Images/iStockphoto/KatarinaGondova
5. Cut your cart.
In research evaluating marketing tactics that could sway consumers to make healthy choices while also improving grocery stores’ bottom line, Payne and colleagues instructed some shoppers to put all their fruits and vegetables in the front half of their grocery carts — which were divided by a strip of duct tape — and everything else in the other half. Those shoppers ended up purchasing 102 percent more fruits and vegetables than those with normal carts. You can mimic the experiment — and its results — by simply using your purse or sweater as a divider and aiming to fill one half of your cart with produce, Payne suggests.
(Getty Images/iStockphoto/hxdyl)
Getty Images/iStockphoto/hxdyl
6. Shop healthy first.
In one study from the Food and Brand Lab, researchers found that people at a breakfast buffet were more likely to pile their plates with fruit when it was offered first compared to when it was last in line. Likewise, 75 percent of buffet-goers loaded up on cheesy eggs when they were presented first, while fewer than 30 percent of them did so when eggs were their last choice. Whether it’s your buffet plate or your grocery cart, loading up on healthy foods first will reduce temptation to splurge, Just says: “You feel more willing to buy the marginal thing when you have that empty cart.”
(Getty Images/iStockphoto/boule13)
Getty Images/iStockphoto/boule13
7. Anticipate the layout — and positive changes ahead.
Most grocery stores have the same basic layout: Produce and fresher foods along the perimeter; packaged, more highly-processed foods in the aisles; displays featuring impulse buys at the ends of aisles; candy and soda in the checkout line. While anticipating — and avoiding — these temptations can help you make healthier decisions, doing so isn’t always possible. Fortunately, that’s changing as researchers like Payne are finding ways to work with grocery stores to use marketing tactics for good. Some places, for instance, are talking about creating “healthy aisles” that contain all of shoppers’ nutritional needs in one place. “Grocers can help their bottom line while helping the waistline of their consumers,” he says.
(Thinkstock)
