The “Healthy=Lighter” Heuristic

Prior research suggests that consumers rely mostly on heuristic-based decision making when it comes to food related decisions (Wansink and Chandon 2014). For instance, a “health=expensive” intuition states that consumer associate healthy food with higher prices (Haws et al., 2017). An “unhealthy=tasty” intuition suggests that consumers hold a lay belief that unhealthy food tastes better (Raghunatan et al., 2006). Finally, a “healthy=less filling” intuition states that consumers consider healthy food as less filling/satisfying (Suher et al., 2016). This article adds to this stream of literature by adding a new intuition: consumers infer that healthier food weighs less than unhealthy food. We term it the “healthy=lighter” heuristic. Consistent with other heuristics, we argue that the healthy-lighter heuristic derives from both internal (i.e., example generation: items such as (burgers/chips) salads/fruits that are (heavier) lighter in calorie content are more likely to come to mind when thinking about (un)healthy food) and external sources (i.e., market communications: food containing less fat often have “light” labels, e.g., Coke light). Although in both sources, heavy/light refers to calorie content of food, rather than the weight. Thus, two important mechanisms underlie this heuristic. First, the calorie estimation links food healthiness and heaviness/lightness perception. Second, people generalize the metaphorical meaning of heavy and light to their literal meaning on weight. Building on the bidirectional influence of metaphors, we argue that people will also use literal meaning of weight to infer the healthiness of food. Taken together, we predict that people will expect healthier food to weigh less than normal or unhealthy food. In the meantime, people will also consider food that weighs less to be healthier.