Department of Work, Organisation and Society, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium; Area Marketing, Vlerick Business School, Reep 1, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
Department of Work, Organisation and Society, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium; Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics, Prinsstraat 13, B2000, Antwerp, Belgium.
Appetite. 2024 Jan 1;192:107098. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.107098. Epub 2023 Nov 7.
Worldwide, obesity is a growing concern. The implicit belief that healthiness and tastiness in food are inversely related (the Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition or UTI) decreases healthy food consumption and increases the risk of obesity. Since also childhood obesity has increased at an alarming rate and a large component of adult obesity is established during childhood, questions about children's own food beliefs and preferences are important. However, methods currently used to assess the UTI are either unvalidated Likert scales or implicit measures that are time intensive and too complex to be used for children. Two studies presented here offer an alternative measurement - the simple visual analogue scale. The findings show that this measure is more effective in predicting dietary quality in adults and the frequency of healthy food consumption in children compared to more traditional measures. This simple and effective tool could be used by academics and health practitioners alike to better understand children's food beliefs at an early age, which is a critical step when addressing the increasing obesity problem.
在全球范围内，肥胖是一个日益严重的问题。人们普遍认为食物的健康与美味是相互矛盾的（即“不健康=美味”的直觉，简称 UTI），这降低了健康食品的消费，增加了肥胖的风险。由于儿童肥胖率也在以惊人的速度增长，而且成年人肥胖的很大一部分是在儿童时期形成的，因此了解儿童自身的食物观念和偏好非常重要。然而，目前用于评估 UTI 的方法要么是未经验证的李克特量表，要么是耗时且过于复杂而不适合儿童使用的内隐测量方法。本文介绍的两项研究提供了一种替代测量方法——简单的视觉模拟量表。研究结果表明，与传统测量方法相比，这种方法在预测成年人饮食质量和儿童健康食品消费频率方面更为有效。这种简单有效的工具可以被学者和健康从业者用来更好地了解儿童在早期的食物观念，这是解决日益严重的肥胖问题的关键一步。
