{"id":2041802,"date":"2019-04-22T11:22:27","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T15:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=2041802"},"modified":"2019-04-22T11:22:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T15:22:27","slug":"teenagers-junk-food-marketing-2041802-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/teenagers-junk-food-marketing-2041802-2\/","title":{"rendered":"To get teens off junk food, tap into their outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"
Exposing teenagers to the junk food industry’s manipulative marketing techniques may offer a way to tap into their natural desire to rebel\u2014against the snack makers themselves.<\/p>\n
“Anyone who has spent time around teenagers knows how powerful their feelings of outrage can be,” says coauthor David Yeager, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. “But what nobody had figured out was how to harness that energy to promote public health.<\/p>\n
“Our experiment showed that teens’ feelings of righteous indignation are powerful enough to overcome the positive emotional associations with junk food that are created by the food companies’ manipulative marketing practices.”<\/p>\n
Don’t be a sucker<\/h3>\n
The study’s approach produced an enduring change in both boys’ and girls’ immediate emotional reactions to junk food marketing messages. And teenage boys, a notoriously difficult group to persuade when it comes to giving up junk food, continued making healthier food and drink choices in their school cafeteria three months later.<\/p>\n