According to ‘unhealthy = tasty intuition,’ people enjoy food more if they believe it is unhealthy, find it difficult to control cravings

By Rachel Boyd
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Senior Jared Hebert does not put much thought into  what comprises his diet. A self proclaimed lover of fast food, he pays little attention to what he chooses to eat and why he has made these decisions.

“I usually go to McDonald’s and get a burger because it tastes good, and I don’t care about the calories or fat. It’s more about taste than how healthy it is,” he said.

Herbert said he often views unhealthy indulgent, food as a tastier option, and he is not alone according to an April 2011 article by Raj Raghunathan Ph.D., a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. In this article and also in a 2006 study he performed, Raghunathan explained the “unhealthy=tasty intuition”: the idea that people will choose unhealthy food over healthy food because they assume, sometimes wrongly, that it tastes better.

This is caused by the idea that taste and unhealthiness is correlated. This theory could be a contributing factor to the growing obesity epidemic in which an estimated 16.9 percent of adolescents from two to19 years were considered obese according to results from the 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

“I think there’s definitely a connotation that healthy food is gross and fatty food tastes good,” Herbert said.

According to Raghunathan, the belief that unhealthy food tastes better comes from three sources.

“One of them is religion,” he said. “An example of this goes straight back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit even though they knew it was bad. The second one is media because consumers are always seeing advertising for unhealthy food and are constantly surrounded by the pull of unhealthy things which makes them crave them. The last one is consequences. When my son eats a bunch of candy and I tell him to stop before he rots his teeth, it makes him want it more because he knows it’s something he shouldn’t have.”

While there are ways to recognize the call of unhealthy food and reject it, it is not always easy according to senior Gretchen Santfleben.

“Sometimes there’s nothing I crave more than a nice, greasy hamburger from McDonald’s, but at the same time I’m like ‘this is disgusting and so bad for me; why am I eating this?’ For the most part I try to avoid fast food,” Santfleben said.

Despite the ability to recognize that unhealthy food should not be overindulged, the idea that unhealthy food tastes better is not necessarily a conscious one. According to Raghunathan’s study, this idea can influence even the eating decisions of those who disagree with the idea that unhealthy food is tastier.

“People want what they shouldn’t have, and obviously unhealthy food falls in that category,” Herbert said. “I don’t specifically choose to eat fast food because I think everything else is gross, but I guess I subconsciously think that’s true.”

During an experiment in Raghunathan’s study, Raghunathan presented unsuspecting guests at a party with Lassi, a smoothie made with a base of yogurt or milk. He gave half of the attendees the impression that Lassi was very healthy and told the other half that it was very unhealthy. When later surveyed about how they felt about the smoothie, those who thought it was unhealthy found it tastier and enjoyed it more than those who thought it was nutritious.

As for students here, assistant cafeteria manager  Susan Pendergrass said the healthy versus unhealthy choices during lunch are split pretty evenly.

“We go through a lot of fresh fruit during lunch, but then again there are also many students who only buy a la carte items: chips, Powerade and things like that, that don’t really make up a healthy lunch,” she said.

Although in the past few years there has been a push for a healthier America in ways such as encouraging exercise and posting nutritional information in restaurants, these efforts still sometimes fall short.

“When people go to the store, they usually have good intentions,” Raghunathan said. “But if you go to the store and you’re hungry or maybe you’re going to have a party, your emphasis is going to be more on taste than healthiness. Because of this people tend to avoid the fat-free and diet items even if they taste the same, if not better, than the less healthy choices.”