October 21, 2025 • 31 mins
Are we really making healthy choices for our children in the supermarket? Or are we being nudged by bright colours, on-pack claims and fruit-filled imagery?
Associate Professor Helen Dixon and Jane Martin unpack the psychology, policy and packaging that influence what ends up in our shopping trolleys. They highlight the subtle strategies used to market commercial infant and toddler foods, and discuss what can be done to support parents in making informed choices.
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Intro (00:00):
This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurundjeri people,
the Woi Wurrung and the Bunurong. We'd like to pay
respects to their elders, past and present, and emerging.
From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
of Melbourne, this is PsychTalks.
Nick (00:22):
Hello, I'm Nick Haslam, and welcome to our last episode
of PsychTalks, for this season anyway. And as always, I'm
joined by my enigmatic, charismatic co-host, Cassie Hayward.
Cassie (00:32):
Hi, Nick. Thank you for that introduction. Yes, we're winding
up the season for now, but what fascinating areas of
research we've covered. We've looked at everything from how languages
shape our thoughts in our episode with Dr Frank Mollica,
to what's the best tactic to ask for a pay
increase at work with our colleague, Professor Jen Overbeck.
Nick (00:50):
It's been a real pleasure, and we've got one more
topic ahead today. We're asking, are we really making smart
choices in the supermarket?
Associate Professor Helen Dixon and Jane Martin join us to
unpack the psychology, policy and packaging that influence what ends
up in our trolleys.
Cassie (01:11):
Welcome to PsychTalks, Helen and Jane. So onto today's topic,
I think we can all relate to the scenario of
shopping for food and just being bombarded with on pack
imagery and claims. I've got 3 little kids. I walk
down those aisles and used to see a lot. Can
we start with just the lay of the land in
terms of the regulations around what manufacturers can say on
(01:34):
the packs? Are there rules around the text and the
imagery and the claims that they can make?
Jane (01:41):
So there are some legislated requirements and rules around um
elements such as the nutrition information panel, and that's why
it always looks the same on the back of the pack,
and there are other requirements on other information on the pack,
so health claims and high-level health claims, um.
When you're talking about something like high in sugar or
low in sugar, high in calcium, they're regulated. But the
(02:05):
vast majority of what's appearing on the pack is basically unregulated,
and they're the most influential elements that we'll go into.
Um, and, and, and basically, there's not a lot of
regulation on many of the, the packed space.
Nick (02:20):
So that's what the rules say, and that's what the
regulations are, but do people respond rationally to this information,
so you give accurate information about nutrition, let's say on
food packaging.
Are people paying attention to that?
Helen (02:32):
Well, we know that many shoppers, when they're shopping, just
refer to the front of the pack, and they might
be shopping with crying kids in the trolley or tired
and rushed after work. And so they're making quick decisions,
and they often rely on heuristics to appraise products. And
we've done some quite fun research looking at how, if
(02:55):
front of pack marketing claim highlights an isolated
positive attribute of a, an otherwise unhealthy product. People will
generalise and it effectively serves to put a health halo
over the product. So a classic example is marshmallows, 98%
fat free, but not mentioning, you know, 98% sugar, sugar
(03:16):
or whatever.
Cassie (03:17):
Um, Helen, I'm sure a lot of our listeners know
the term heuristics, but just so we're all on the
same page. What do you mean by that?
Helen (03:23):
It's really just a quick rule of thumb, a quick
kind of cognitive strategy, and, um, it's often applying generalisations
to things, but it can lead to inaccurate assessments of things.
So people, um, do make these quick thinking decisions. Uh,
we do know though, that consumers who do slow down
(03:46):
and read the back of the pack, that can almost
empower them to be not as sucked in by what's
happening on the front of the pack. So there's little
simple rules of thumb with the
the ingredients listed is meant to, uh, list the ingredients
in order of weight. And so those ingredients that appear
first are the bulk of the products. And, and in
(04:07):
the NIP, a good way if you're wanting to compare
products is compare the per 100 gram column, you know,
and you might see, it might make you work out
that the iced coffee you thought was a good option
actually has 16 teaspoons of sugar or something. So, Uh, yes.
Cassie (04:25):
And the, the NIP is the nutrition information panel.
Helen (04:28):
That's right.
Cassie (04:29):
And Helen, not just to blatantly plug the work you
and I did together, but I will. Um, we did
some work looking at parents evaluating children's snack food packaging,
and it was interesting to see that even if rationally
they knew that this quote unquote, health fruit snack wasn't
actually healthy, if it had imagery of fruits on the front,
(04:49):
it kind of prompted them just to think.
Oh, this is healthy. Are we that gullible when it
comes to these packaging things?
Helen (04:56):
First, I've got to say, I think that was one
of the most fun studies for last year. But yeah,
it was fascinating. So in this study, we, we had
a graphic designer prepare these mock packs of, of processed
snack foods, and we varied whether they had just a
picture of the actual snack that looked a bit like
(05:17):
the veggie one looked.
Bit like a cheese all and the fruit one looked
a bit lolly-ish. And then we had some packs which
had pictures of fresh produce, so photos of fruit or
in the case of the veggie one, photos of corn cobs.
Then we had cartoons with, you know, produce with eyes
and legs and things, possibly a child targeted marketing strategy.
(05:39):
And then we had this kind of idyllic setting with
kids in a veggie garden with a basket of fresh
produce. And interestingly, we found that the photos of fresh
produce were the most persuasive, and parents appraised the equivalent
product as healthier when they, uh, saw that imagery. And
(06:00):
also the cartoons and the photos, they perceived the product
as more attractive. And we actually found when we did
a bit of an analysis of what predicted their intentions
to purchase a given product,
That it was how appealing or attractive they thought the
product was that was important. And I think that's interesting too,
because in the area of health psychology and health communication,
(06:23):
it's easy for us to get caught up and think
that everyone's preoccupied with health, and if we tell them
something's healthy, they'll want to eat it. But the reality is,
we know from our research that
taste, cost, convenience, and health concerns are key considerations, and
for some consumers, you know, cost and taste is way
(06:45):
ahead of health concerns. So, um,
Yeah, it's important to be realistic about that.
Cassie (06:50):
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a food product
that's fooled you with its claims or with its marketing?
Helen (06:56):
One that got me relatively recently is these dried pea snacks.
And I actually thought they were sort of roasted whole
pea pods.
And I bought them thinking they're an OK option, but
they are actually kind of pea-shaped things that might be
(07:16):
like a chip or a twisty moulded into a shape
of a pea.
And, um, I think they're highly processed and highly deceptive.
Cassie (07:26):
So they're as much as a pea is a potato chip is a potato.
Helen (07:29):
Yeah. And look, it's possible I got tricked too because
in the manner that people in our study did, because
there are photos of happy little green pea pods on
the front of the pack.
Nick (07:38):
So, so there are cases like that where you just
don't know where there's no way of knowing and the, uh,
marketing might be a bit deceptive. Are there cases where
the marketing is not that deceptive, but you just don't
see what you don't want to see?
So you sort of know it's unhealthy, but you just
want the product so much that you'll just overlook it.
Helen (07:54):
Well, that's a really interesting point, Nick, because we did
a study last year where we tested parents' responses to
different types of marketing claims that commonly appear on, on
commercial baby and toddler food products.
And what we found was the claims that talk about
(08:16):
free from were the most persuasive. And interestingly, we, in
some of the audits we've done of products, we find
they're the most prevalent claims. So perhaps industry knows they work.
But if you
you think about sort of psych theory and motivation, they're
really appealing to a risk avoidance motivation or a kind
(08:37):
of first do no harm. And I think parents want
to do the right thing by kids, but they're time
poor or they want a convenient option, you know, that
the kids are not gonna spill yoghurt all over the
car seat in the car or whatever.
But, um, they kind of might know sometimes these foods
aren't great, but at least if it's got no nasties
in it, they think that's quite a persuasive sort of claim.
Nick (09:00):
No asbestos. I'll eat that.
So in the tobacco space, uh, we've seen a move
to plain packaging.
Uh, and the inclusion of more and more public health
information about smoking's risks. Where do you sit on the
marketing of packaged foods? Are you looking for stricter rules
about how they're packaged as well? Yeah,
Jane (09:18):
definitely. I mean, we've spent, you know, the first part
of this podcast talking about the influence of these claims
and the packaging, even the colours of the packets. It,
it's all, you know, combined. There's a lot of synergies
around the, you know, to create the biggest impact to
sell the product. So,
I mean, my sort of best case scenario would be
to own health, to own the pack. I mean, we've
(09:41):
seen in Chile these hexagonal warnings, um, around high in sugar, salt, fat, energy,
and that's had a huge impact, and it's worked in
two ways, which I think is exactly what we want
to see in Australia. It's shifted people to healthier foods
and more sort of traditional diets. So it's not just
moving people around the processed food space, which isn't really
(10:03):
where you want to go. It's moving
people to less processed, more natural foods, foods that are,
you know, supporting local farmers, which is a good thing.
It's going back into that local economy. So I think,
you know, that's very attractive to government. For example, if
you're just not talking about shifting the processed packaged food demand,
but that you are moving people into these healthier products.
(10:25):
And there's certainly a lot more that we can do.
We can take things off, and we can make sure
that we get more sort of honest, truthful labelling. So
people aren't,
you know, they just get slightly confused by lots of
different things. Um, and we can start to cut through that,
but by removing some of these persuasive elements, um, we
can give people a, a, a better picture of what
(10:47):
the food actually is. Mm.
Helen (10:50):
The name should reflect the bulk of the ingredients, but
we know there are instances where, for example, there might
be a baby food called
Broccoli, pumpkin, and apple, but when you look at the
back of the pack, it's 80% apple or something like that.
So I think, yes, that would be my wish that
the text and the imagery honestly represents the products, because
(11:13):
we know they're both really important and that consumers rely on
them to make decisions, but also to think about pro-health
front of pack nutrition labelling schemes, like, we know the
Health Star rating, it's currently voluntary, but when we've done studies,
if you apply that, if it was made mandatory to
all products, it does facilitate healthier choices. And we've recently
(11:37):
done some studies testing labelling schemes similar to the
high in, um, labelling that some of the South American
countries are using with Australian consumers. And we found that
that helps parents identify products higher in added sugars and
reorients their preferences towards healthier options.
Nick (11:59):
Baby food. I mean, are there any specific regulations or
rules in relation to baby and toddler food in particular?
Jane (12:05):
Yeah, so this is an area we've done a lot
of research to fill in the gap, so policymakers understand
what the market's like. So it's a growing market. We've seen,
you know, more and more products are coming on the market.
Um, and we had a consultation in 2019. The issue
came onto the agenda, and the sort of key issues
(12:26):
have recently been moved into the food regulator. So they're
around composition of the product, so it's not just the labelling,
but what's, what's in the product. So that's around levels
of sodium and levels of sugar, which is really important,
and a lot of these products are sweet.
And they contain a lot of sugars derived from fruit,
particularly apple and pear, which is probably cheap. Um, and
(12:48):
even savoury products, like Helen was talking about, they're not
whole meals, really. They're, you know, could be 80% apple.
And it's also about having names that accurately reflect the ingredients, um,
what's on the front of the pack, so not being
able to use these pictures of, um, pumpkin and apple,
unless they make up a significant portion of the
(13:09):
product in a whole form, not in a processed form,
because you, you know, what you're seeing should be what
you're actually getting. So really trying to have more truth
in the labelling, but also to try and encourage the
manufacturers and, and shift them to, um, and incentivise them
to create healthier products, because we have so many snack
foods for toddlers. Um, we don't have really well-made, um,
(13:33):
nutritious and nourishing meals for children.
And we need to sort of shift this to create
a healthier source of food for parents who do want
to use these products. And, you know, they are convenient,
but wouldn't it be great if we had a nourishing,
healthy supply of these products? I mean, it, it is
the ultimate con in that young children can eat the
(13:53):
same healthy food as the rest of the family. They
might just need it to be mashed. So it is
a bit of a sort of
Of marketing, you know, creation that these products are, you know,
we're seeing more and more of these products in the
supermarket because children can eat, eat other foods that are
potentially cheaper, um, as well. But, you know, having this
special market and these special sort of ways of promoting
(14:16):
them is, is very persuasive, and it, and it just
shows the success of, of, of
that kind of approach.
Helen (14:22):
And I think nutrition is so interesting, particularly for kids,
because it's not only important for lifelong chronic disease prevention,
but to enable them to, to grow, you know, flourish
in a developmental sense. And we do have stricter rules
about the composition of baby foods cause they have certain
iron requirements and so on. But the toddler food category
(14:46):
has really emerged as this whole new category of products
in recent years. And what's interesting is, uh, the Australian
dietary guidelines for kids in, in the toddler age group,
they basically recommend that they can eat family foods. You know,
there are textural issues before kids have teeth, that they
may need purees and so on. But there's no reason,
(15:08):
you know, that a 4 year old needs to be
sucking puree out of a pouch. They, they can be
eating family foods. So,
Yeah, it's fascinating. This whole product category's arrived. And then
because they're kind of presented in the aisle in the
supermarket with nappies and baby shampoo, it's kind of implicit
from their placement, all these foods are appropriate for kids.
Cassie (15:30):
On that, not just related to toddler foods, but, uh, Helen,
you mentioned the health star rating.
I think a lot of people will be surprised that
that's not a mandatory piece of information that's on all
food that manufacturers can choose to display that or not.
What does your research say about the usefulness or perhaps
the misinterpretation of the health star rating?
Helen (15:49):
Well, when we have done studies where it is applied
uniformly
to products. It does enable consumers to compare products within
a given category and identify healthier options. The algorithm to
assign stars to products, kind of, they get demerit points
for being high in nutrients of concern, like saturated fat, salt, sugar, etc.
(16:13):
And, and kind of bonus points for positive nutritional attributes.
And there are a few exceptions to the rule, but generally,
the algorithm does work and is a good indicator of
higher stars being a healthier choice.
Cassie (16:26):
But only within a category, right? So you can't compare
a frozen food star to a cereal star.
Jane (16:33):
No, but the categories are quite broad. I think the
main issue is that 2/3 of products aren't carrying the
health star. And if, if you're a consumer out there
listening to this, if a product's not carrying a health star,
find something that is, and that's higher rather than lower,
because it is used as a marketing tool, and that
gives me comfort, apart from the research that it works. So,
(16:55):
That's why food manufacturers aren't putting it on their lower
rating products, because it does influence consumers. So that's why
we're advocating for it to be mandatory. And for 3
out of 4 Australians who use the health stars, um,
it helps them to understand which are what product's healthier.
So it is being used. What's undermining trust in it
is that it's not mandatory and not sort of seen
(17:17):
to be government endorsed, and a
standard that all food manufacturers have to meet. So that
is in some way undermining the effectiveness of this system,
which was designed to simplify the nutrition information panel and
bring it to the front of the pack. So it
was a sort of meant to be a time-saving way
(17:37):
to support, you know, people when they're actually choosing what
foods they want to buy.
And in that supermarket situation where they're all side by
side on the shelf, you know, they are basically within category.
So that's, you know, where you can sort of compare
cereals against each other because there's a wall of them.
So that's where it does have its sort of utility,
I suppose. Uh,
Nick (17:58):
what other research have you done on how food marketing
can influence our food choices?
Helen (18:02):
We've done lots of research on different forms of marketing.
We've done stuff, elite sports sponsorship, both in relation to
alcohol and food, because those events have really high audience reach.
The AFL Grand Final has the biggest audience of any
televised sporting event for the year.
(18:24):
And so it's a great way to reach adults and kids, unfortunately,
with alcohol, gambling and food marketing. I like to when
I design studies to not just be investigating a problem,
but try and build in ways of looking at solutions
(18:44):
to address the
problem. So we've done some interesting experiments where we've done
simulations of sponsorship. What if, for example, this is a
kind of grassroots community sport, we replace the kit that
kids are given at the start of their enrollment in
Milo cricket or Macca's Little Athletics with a healthy sponsor.
(19:07):
And we have found that if you apply those marketing
principles to healthful products, they similarly build brand awareness, promote
the appeal of the product.
And sports related marketing is really interesting, particularly in relation
to junk food, because, you know, we all have in
our minds an image of sport as a sort of healthy,
(19:28):
vital kind of pursuit. And so, again, it's, it's deeply psychological,
this sort of building these associations that every time a
goal's kicked in the footy match, we zoom in on
the Macca's logo on the fence, and so on. And
it's sort of
implicitly creating this notion of, you can eat crap as
long as you burn it up with activity or whatever.
(19:49):
And if there's a lot of that linkage, like there
was a phase a while ago of pedometers given away
with sugary breakfast cereal. But the other thing about sports
sponsorship is it's a highly emotional context, and
Um, you know, with persuasion, there are affective and cognitive components. And,
and if we associate a brand with this sort of
(20:11):
exciting event that people are invested in with attractive, fit,
healthy athletes and celebs and so on, it's, it's a
great kind of promotional strategy.
Cassie (20:22):
But it also implies that the athletes are eating that food.
Helen (20:25):
Yes. And that's another thing we've done research on is
counter-advertising strategies. So if you actually direct consumers' attention upstream
to exposing the marketing tactics of, of these harmful industries,
be it gambling, tobacco, or, or junk food. We
(20:46):
did another trial where around the NRL finals a couple
of years ago, we knew they were gonna have heavy
alcohol sponsorship. And we had a professionally produced ad that
exposed and critiqued alcohol sponsorship, and we tested that against
a traditional public health ad focusing on the downstream health
(21:07):
harms of alcohol. And so we sent people links, and
they watched this counter ad in the lead up to
watching the alcohol sponsored event.
And we followed them up, and what we found was
that the counter ad exposing industry marketing, it also had
the kind of effect of promoting reduced intentions to drink alcohol,
(21:28):
so it could potentially assist with curbing personal alcohol intake.
But it also made the audience members more critical of
the alcohol sponsor brands and view them less favourably, and
they saw more of a mismatch between those products
and the sport, and it increased their support for policy
(21:49):
to restrict that form of marketing. So that's an interesting strategy.
Cassie (21:52):
But on that, I mean, back when I was a kid,
cigarette companies sponsored sport, which seems bizarre today, but that's
just how it was. And, you know, in 10 years
or so, do you think that's how we'll look at
fast food sponsorship and advertising in, in sport?
Jane (22:07):
I think we will.
The leading burden of disease used to be tobacco. Now
it's obesity, and then, you know, up there too is diet.
So this is a really serious health problem, and we're
setting our children up, using all these kinds of techniques
in particular, for an unhealthy future. And 1 in 2
Australians are living with a chronic disease. So, you know,
these are preventable diseases on the whole, that are, are
(22:31):
growing, and they're starting at quite young ages, um, as well.
So this is really problematic. You know, half of women
during pregnancy are above healthy weight. So there's epigenetic effects
of that, and we know that it's similar to tobacco.
We're getting this uptake, and the poor diets are really
getting much worse during adolescence. Adolescents are targeted with this
(22:53):
marketing and advertising. The social norms are very far away from,
you know, healthy, nourishing
Um, diets and unprocessed foods. So we need to sort
of start to tip this. And as we start to
look to changing and denormalising ultra-processed foods, we will be
looking to the same sort of techniques that were used
(23:14):
in tobacco control, and they were, you know, around the marketing,
and we know how powerful sport is for those, all
those reasons we've just touched on.
It's just such, you know, a juxtaposition around the product.
I mean, it's so clever. So that, and it doesn't
happen in all countries. So those sorts of, um, relationships
need to be blasted apart, and we really need to
(23:36):
sort of shift our whole food system. It's a big change,
but unless we do that, our health system will not
be able to manage, you know, in the UK they've
looked
at the NHS and, and can it cope? It can't.
We're in exactly the same boat. We won't have a healthy,
productive workforce, and we won't have a, a health system
that is able to do all the things that we'll
(23:57):
need to do, even now, let alone if this continues.
So I think the future is grim, unless the levers
are pulled, and we know what those levers are. Marketing's
a huge one, price is a big one, availability.
So all those kinds of things are important, and we
need to look what does, what are those hard decisions
that politicians will need to make to reshape our environment
(24:20):
and support a healthy local food system.
And stop the commodification. And really, these corporations are selling
these products, they're not paying for the true cost of
the outcomes that they are, uh, you know, that they
are creating. So it's these externalities, like dental health and things.
(24:41):
That are, you know, they're getting away with it right now.
I just can't see that continuing because the economy just
will not cope. So those times will come, I suspect.
So
Nick (24:52):
it's big and it's scary and it's complex, but let's
say you had a magic policy wand and you could
change one thing, what would you do?
Helen (24:59):
If you look at the Australian dietary guidelines or the
healthy eating pyramid was what was used when we were kids.
Now they have a, a circle that's a bit like
a dinner plate.
You know, it's these whole foods that are recommended, high
in plant foods, lean proteins, etc. And off to the side,
they have discretionary foods, which tend to be these sort
(25:20):
of sweet and salty snack foods, chips, etc.
What we actually find, you know, people think, Oh, you,
you know, you're being too serious. Kids just having the
occasional treat. We actually know from our big nutrition surveys
that about 40% of kids' daily energy intake is coming
from these discretionary foods, which are really recommended to be
(25:42):
kind of sometimes foods, not everyday foods. And we also
know from research monitoring, food marketing.
That basically, the food marketing environment is the healthy eating
pyramid tipped upside down, and, and so these energy dense,
nutrient poor discretionary foods that we're meant to be eating
(26:02):
the least of are the most heavily promoted.
We've also done a recent research, uh, looking at school
canteen menus and finding that these foods are cheaper too, and,
and particularly in Australia with the high cost of whole
foods and groceries at the moment.
That would be my wish that we reconfigure food settings
(26:25):
and so on to nudge consumers to healthy options.
Jane (26:30):
Now, one of the reasons we're not getting the, um,
traction that we need is because of the power of
corporate interests. It's the same as in climate change, and
the emphasis is put back onto the individual. We've been
talking exactly how the individuals,
You know, how would the individual assesses something as being
hijacked through, you know, understanding the psychology of how, how
(26:51):
humans interpret information and make decisions, so I think,
Um, we really need to see some pushback against these
commercial interests. They're making profit out of this. I mean,
why they want to sort of slowly poison their consumers,
I'm not sure, but what we've seen is these cheap ingredients,
making these foods which are also very cheap. They're very
(27:14):
heavily promoted. So we need
to rebalance, and the only way to rebalance is to
use these regulatory levers. I think that's the only way
we'll see change. And it will be interesting to see
how this plays out in the baby toddler space. This
is a little subset of these, you know, processed and packaged,
some less processed foods, but it would just be interesting
to see how that might change, um, the market.
(27:37):
Um, and it will incentivize and once you get that
economy of scale, it creates new opportunities for industry and
innovation to occur, and I think that's really important, but
if you just rely on individuals to change their behaviour,
It's not gonna work. 9 in 10 adults, and the
same with kids, aren't eating a healthy diet. So, and
it's not because they're not trying or don't care. That's
(28:00):
absolutely not why that's happening. It's it's everything else in
the mix. So we shouldn't keep on pushing individuals to change.
We have to make the environment supportive of them having
healthy diets, and they need healthy nourishing food.
to be able to do that.
Cassie (28:16):
Until we get to that space where the system is healthier,
what can individuals do, just in terms of, is it
slowing down when they're shopping and not falling for those
marketing traps? What can we do? I know we shouldn't
be pushing the burden onto the individual consumer, but until
that system level change happens, what can our listeners kind
of take into their grocery shopping?
Helen (28:39):
Well, if they've got time, obviously, whole foods, you kind
of know what you're getting, and, and we talked earlier
about the issues with product composition, but for packaged food,
you want to be sure that what it says on
the front of the pack matches what's actually in there.
But there are some strategies if you've got time to
look at the ingredients list. Often the length, the, the
(29:01):
number of ingredients or the number of numbers in the
ingredients is a bit of an indicator that it's a
highly processed product.
Um, I mean, there's a degree of processing of food,
but the ultra-processed food, it tends to go hand in
hand with being high in nutrients of concern like salt
and sugar.
Um, it being energy dense and nutrient poor is what
(29:24):
we often say. So short ingredients list, comparing the column
that compares key nutrients, both beneficial and, and nutrients of concern,
per 100 gram, you can look at those sorts of attributes. But, um,
I think if it has ingredients that you wouldn't find
in a real person's pantry, just in a factory, that's
(29:46):
a bit of a telltale sign.
Jane (29:48):
We've got some great campaigns they could join if they
want to make changes. So we've got our campaign around
healthier food for kids, which is called Kids are Sweet Enough.
Sign up. We've got another campaign about protecting children from
unhealthy food marketing. We've got a paper going to the
Health Minister on the feasibility of regulation. So it could
be on the table. We've got Jamie Oliver and others
who've supported that call for action. So,
(30:12):
You know, that is a place to, to come to
where we're at the Food for Health Alliance. So we,
we'd love to engage with people who feel passionate and
would like to see change around those two things.
Cassie (30:23):
Thank you for sharing with us, Helen and Jane. And listeners,
if you're wanting more information about today's topic, we'll put
some links to Helen and Jane's work and campaigns in
the show notes. But thank you, both of you for
joining us today.
Helen and Jane (30:36):
Thank you.
Cassie (30:39):
You've been listening to PsychTalks with our wonderful guests, Associate
Professor Helen Dixon and Jane Martin. We'd like to thank
them for today and you, our listeners at home, for
coming along for the ride for another great season. If
you'd like to show your support, please make sure you're
a subscriber, and we hope to be back here next year.
Nick (30:57):
This episode was produced by Carly Godden with support from
Mairead Murray and Gemma Papprill. Sound engineering by Jack Palmer.
This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurundjeri people,
the Woi Wurrung and the Bunurong. We'd like to pay
respects to their elders, past and present, and emerging.
From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
of Melbourne, this is PsychTalks.
Nick (00:22):
Hello, I'm Nick Haslam, and welcome to our last episode
of PsychTalks, for this season anyway. And as always, I'm
joined by my enigmatic, charismatic co-host, Cassie Hayward.
Cassie (00:32):
Hi, Nick. Thank you for that introduction. Yes, we're winding
up the season for now, but what fascinating areas of
research we've covered. We've looked at everything from how languages
shape our thoughts in our episode with Dr Frank Mollica,
to what's the best tactic to ask for a pay
increase at work with our colleague, Professor Jen Overbeck.
Nick (00:50):
It's been a real pleasure, and we've got one more
topic ahead today. We're asking, are we really making smart
choices in the supermarket?
Associate Professor Helen Dixon and Jane Martin join us to
unpack the psychology, policy and packaging that influence what ends
up in our trolleys.
Cassie (01:11):
Welcome to PsychTalks, Helen and Jane. So onto today's topic,
I think we can all relate to the scenario of
shopping for food and just being bombarded with on pack
imagery and claims. I've got 3 little kids. I walk
down those aisles and used to see a lot. Can
we start with just the lay of the land in
terms of the regulations around what manufacturers can say on
(01:34):
the packs? Are there rules around the text and the
imagery and the claims that they can make?
Jane (01:41):
So there are some legislated requirements and rules around um
elements such as the nutrition information panel, and that's why
it always looks the same on the back of the pack,
and there are other requirements on other information on the pack,
so health claims and high-level health claims, um.
When you're talking about something like high in sugar or
low in sugar, high in calcium, they're regulated. But the
(02:05):
vast majority of what's appearing on the pack is basically unregulated,
and they're the most influential elements that we'll go into.
Um, and, and, and basically, there's not a lot of
regulation on many of the, the packed space.
Nick (02:20):
So that's what the rules say, and that's what the
regulations are, but do people respond rationally to this information,
so you give accurate information about nutrition, let's say on
food packaging.
Are people paying attention to that?
Helen (02:32):
Well, we know that many shoppers, when they're shopping, just
refer to the front of the pack, and they might
be shopping with crying kids in the trolley or tired
and rushed after work. And so they're making quick decisions,
and they often rely on heuristics to appraise products. And
we've done some quite fun research looking at how, if
(02:55):
front of pack marketing claim highlights an isolated
positive attribute of a, an otherwise unhealthy product. People will
generalise and it effectively serves to put a health halo
over the product. So a classic example is marshmallows, 98%
fat free, but not mentioning, you know, 98% sugar, sugar
(03:16):
or whatever.
Cassie (03:17):
Um, Helen, I'm sure a lot of our listeners know
the term heuristics, but just so we're all on the
same page. What do you mean by that?
Helen (03:23):
It's really just a quick rule of thumb, a quick
kind of cognitive strategy, and, um, it's often applying generalisations
to things, but it can lead to inaccurate assessments of things.
So people, um, do make these quick thinking decisions. Uh,
we do know though, that consumers who do slow down
(03:46):
and read the back of the pack, that can almost
empower them to be not as sucked in by what's
happening on the front of the pack. So there's little
simple rules of thumb with the
the ingredients listed is meant to, uh, list the ingredients
in order of weight. And so those ingredients that appear
first are the bulk of the products. And, and in
(04:07):
the NIP, a good way if you're wanting to compare
products is compare the per 100 gram column, you know,
and you might see, it might make you work out
that the iced coffee you thought was a good option
actually has 16 teaspoons of sugar or something. So, Uh, yes.
Cassie (04:25):
And the, the NIP is the nutrition information panel.
Helen (04:28):
That's right.
Cassie (04:29):
And Helen, not just to blatantly plug the work you
and I did together, but I will. Um, we did
some work looking at parents evaluating children's snack food packaging,
and it was interesting to see that even if rationally
they knew that this quote unquote, health fruit snack wasn't
actually healthy, if it had imagery of fruits on the front,
(04:49):
it kind of prompted them just to think.
Oh, this is healthy. Are we that gullible when it
comes to these packaging things?
Helen (04:56):
First, I've got to say, I think that was one
of the most fun studies for last year. But yeah,
it was fascinating. So in this study, we, we had
a graphic designer prepare these mock packs of, of processed
snack foods, and we varied whether they had just a
picture of the actual snack that looked a bit like
(05:17):
the veggie one looked.
Bit like a cheese all and the fruit one looked
a bit lolly-ish. And then we had some packs which
had pictures of fresh produce, so photos of fruit or
in the case of the veggie one, photos of corn cobs.
Then we had cartoons with, you know, produce with eyes
and legs and things, possibly a child targeted marketing strategy.
(05:39):
And then we had this kind of idyllic setting with
kids in a veggie garden with a basket of fresh
produce. And interestingly, we found that the photos of fresh
produce were the most persuasive, and parents appraised the equivalent
product as healthier when they, uh, saw that imagery. And
(06:00):
also the cartoons and the photos, they perceived the product
as more attractive. And we actually found when we did
a bit of an analysis of what predicted their intentions
to purchase a given product,
That it was how appealing or attractive they thought the
product was that was important. And I think that's interesting too,
because in the area of health psychology and health communication,
(06:23):
it's easy for us to get caught up and think
that everyone's preoccupied with health, and if we tell them
something's healthy, they'll want to eat it. But the reality is,
we know from our research that
taste, cost, convenience, and health concerns are key considerations, and
for some consumers, you know, cost and taste is way
(06:45):
ahead of health concerns. So, um,
Yeah, it's important to be realistic about that.
Cassie (06:50):
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a food product
that's fooled you with its claims or with its marketing?
Helen (06:56):
One that got me relatively recently is these dried pea snacks.
And I actually thought they were sort of roasted whole
pea pods.
And I bought them thinking they're an OK option, but
they are actually kind of pea-shaped things that might be
(07:16):
like a chip or a twisty moulded into a shape
of a pea.
And, um, I think they're highly processed and highly deceptive.
Cassie (07:26):
So they're as much as a pea is a potato chip is a potato.
Helen (07:29):
Yeah. And look, it's possible I got tricked too because
in the manner that people in our study did, because
there are photos of happy little green pea pods on
the front of the pack.
Nick (07:38):
So, so there are cases like that where you just
don't know where there's no way of knowing and the, uh,
marketing might be a bit deceptive. Are there cases where
the marketing is not that deceptive, but you just don't
see what you don't want to see?
So you sort of know it's unhealthy, but you just
want the product so much that you'll just overlook it.
Helen (07:54):
Well, that's a really interesting point, Nick, because we did
a study last year where we tested parents' responses to
different types of marketing claims that commonly appear on, on
commercial baby and toddler food products.
And what we found was the claims that talk about
(08:16):
free from were the most persuasive. And interestingly, we, in
some of the audits we've done of products, we find
they're the most prevalent claims. So perhaps industry knows they work.
But if you
you think about sort of psych theory and motivation, they're
really appealing to a risk avoidance motivation or a kind
(08:37):
of first do no harm. And I think parents want
to do the right thing by kids, but they're time
poor or they want a convenient option, you know, that
the kids are not gonna spill yoghurt all over the
car seat in the car or whatever.
But, um, they kind of might know sometimes these foods
aren't great, but at least if it's got no nasties
in it, they think that's quite a persuasive sort of claim.
Nick (09:00):
No asbestos. I'll eat that.
So in the tobacco space, uh, we've seen a move
to plain packaging.
Uh, and the inclusion of more and more public health
information about smoking's risks. Where do you sit on the
marketing of packaged foods? Are you looking for stricter rules
about how they're packaged as well? Yeah,
Jane (09:18):
definitely. I mean, we've spent, you know, the first part
of this podcast talking about the influence of these claims
and the packaging, even the colours of the packets. It,
it's all, you know, combined. There's a lot of synergies
around the, you know, to create the biggest impact to
sell the product. So,
I mean, my sort of best case scenario would be
to own health, to own the pack. I mean, we've
(09:41):
seen in Chile these hexagonal warnings, um, around high in sugar, salt, fat, energy,
and that's had a huge impact, and it's worked in
two ways, which I think is exactly what we want
to see in Australia. It's shifted people to healthier foods
and more sort of traditional diets. So it's not just
moving people around the processed food space, which isn't really
(10:03):
where you want to go. It's moving
people to less processed, more natural foods, foods that are,
you know, supporting local farmers, which is a good thing.
It's going back into that local economy. So I think,
you know, that's very attractive to government. For example, if
you're just not talking about shifting the processed packaged food demand,
but that you are moving people into these healthier products.
(10:25):
And there's certainly a lot more that we can do.
We can take things off, and we can make sure
that we get more sort of honest, truthful labelling. So
people aren't,
you know, they just get slightly confused by lots of
different things. Um, and we can start to cut through that,
but by removing some of these persuasive elements, um, we
can give people a, a, a better picture of what
(10:47):
the food actually is. Mm.
Helen (10:50):
The name should reflect the bulk of the ingredients, but
we know there are instances where, for example, there might
be a baby food called
Broccoli, pumpkin, and apple, but when you look at the
back of the pack, it's 80% apple or something like that.
So I think, yes, that would be my wish that
the text and the imagery honestly represents the products, because
(11:13):
we know they're both really important and that consumers rely on
them to make decisions, but also to think about pro-health
front of pack nutrition labelling schemes, like, we know the
Health Star rating, it's currently voluntary, but when we've done studies,
if you apply that, if it was made mandatory to
all products, it does facilitate healthier choices. And we've recently
(11:37):
done some studies testing labelling schemes similar to the
high in, um, labelling that some of the South American
countries are using with Australian consumers. And we found that
that helps parents identify products higher in added sugars and
reorients their preferences towards healthier options.
Nick (11:59):
Baby food. I mean, are there any specific regulations or
rules in relation to baby and toddler food in particular?
Jane (12:05):
Yeah, so this is an area we've done a lot
of research to fill in the gap, so policymakers understand
what the market's like. So it's a growing market. We've seen,
you know, more and more products are coming on the market.
Um, and we had a consultation in 2019. The issue
came onto the agenda, and the sort of key issues
(12:26):
have recently been moved into the food regulator. So they're
around composition of the product, so it's not just the labelling,
but what's, what's in the product. So that's around levels
of sodium and levels of sugar, which is really important,
and a lot of these products are sweet.
And they contain a lot of sugars derived from fruit,
particularly apple and pear, which is probably cheap. Um, and
(12:48):
even savoury products, like Helen was talking about, they're not
whole meals, really. They're, you know, could be 80% apple.
And it's also about having names that accurately reflect the ingredients, um,
what's on the front of the pack, so not being
able to use these pictures of, um, pumpkin and apple,
unless they make up a significant portion of the
(13:09):
product in a whole form, not in a processed form,
because you, you know, what you're seeing should be what
you're actually getting. So really trying to have more truth
in the labelling, but also to try and encourage the
manufacturers and, and shift them to, um, and incentivise them
to create healthier products, because we have so many snack
foods for toddlers. Um, we don't have really well-made, um,
(13:33):
nutritious and nourishing meals for children.
And we need to sort of shift this to create
a healthier source of food for parents who do want
to use these products. And, you know, they are convenient,
but wouldn't it be great if we had a nourishing,
healthy supply of these products? I mean, it, it is
the ultimate con in that young children can eat the
(13:53):
same healthy food as the rest of the family. They
might just need it to be mashed. So it is
a bit of a sort of
Of marketing, you know, creation that these products are, you know,
we're seeing more and more of these products in the
supermarket because children can eat, eat other foods that are
potentially cheaper, um, as well. But, you know, having this
special market and these special sort of ways of promoting
(14:16):
them is, is very persuasive, and it, and it just
shows the success of, of, of
that kind of approach.
Helen (14:22):
And I think nutrition is so interesting, particularly for kids,
because it's not only important for lifelong chronic disease prevention,
but to enable them to, to grow, you know, flourish
in a developmental sense. And we do have stricter rules
about the composition of baby foods cause they have certain
iron requirements and so on. But the toddler food category
(14:46):
has really emerged as this whole new category of products
in recent years. And what's interesting is, uh, the Australian
dietary guidelines for kids in, in the toddler age group,
they basically recommend that they can eat family foods. You know,
there are textural issues before kids have teeth, that they
may need purees and so on. But there's no reason,
(15:08):
you know, that a 4 year old needs to be
sucking puree out of a pouch. They, they can be
eating family foods. So,
Yeah, it's fascinating. This whole product category's arrived. And then
because they're kind of presented in the aisle in the
supermarket with nappies and baby shampoo, it's kind of implicit
from their placement, all these foods are appropriate for kids.
Cassie (15:30):
On that, not just related to toddler foods, but, uh, Helen,
you mentioned the health star rating.
I think a lot of people will be surprised that
that's not a mandatory piece of information that's on all
food that manufacturers can choose to display that or not.
What does your research say about the usefulness or perhaps
the misinterpretation of the health star rating?
Helen (15:49):
Well, when we have done studies where it is applied
uniformly
to products. It does enable consumers to compare products within
a given category and identify healthier options. The algorithm to
assign stars to products, kind of, they get demerit points
for being high in nutrients of concern, like saturated fat, salt, sugar, etc.
(16:13):
And, and kind of bonus points for positive nutritional attributes.
And there are a few exceptions to the rule, but generally,
the algorithm does work and is a good indicator of
higher stars being a healthier choice.
Cassie (16:26):
But only within a category, right? So you can't compare
a frozen food star to a cereal star.
Jane (16:33):
No, but the categories are quite broad. I think the
main issue is that 2/3 of products aren't carrying the
health star. And if, if you're a consumer out there
listening to this, if a product's not carrying a health star,
find something that is, and that's higher rather than lower,
because it is used as a marketing tool, and that
gives me comfort, apart from the research that it works. So,
(16:55):
That's why food manufacturers aren't putting it on their lower
rating products, because it does influence consumers. So that's why
we're advocating for it to be mandatory. And for 3
out of 4 Australians who use the health stars, um,
it helps them to understand which are what product's healthier.
So it is being used. What's undermining trust in it
is that it's not mandatory and not sort of seen
(17:17):
to be government endorsed, and a
standard that all food manufacturers have to meet. So that
is in some way undermining the effectiveness of this system,
which was designed to simplify the nutrition information panel and
bring it to the front of the pack. So it
was a sort of meant to be a time-saving way
(17:37):
to support, you know, people when they're actually choosing what
foods they want to buy.
And in that supermarket situation where they're all side by
side on the shelf, you know, they are basically within category.
So that's, you know, where you can sort of compare
cereals against each other because there's a wall of them.
So that's where it does have its sort of utility,
I suppose. Uh,
Nick (17:58):
what other research have you done on how food marketing
can influence our food choices?
Helen (18:02):
We've done lots of research on different forms of marketing.
We've done stuff, elite sports sponsorship, both in relation to
alcohol and food, because those events have really high audience reach.
The AFL Grand Final has the biggest audience of any
televised sporting event for the year.
(18:24):
And so it's a great way to reach adults and kids, unfortunately,
with alcohol, gambling and food marketing. I like to when
I design studies to not just be investigating a problem,
but try and build in ways of looking at solutions
(18:44):
to address the
problem. So we've done some interesting experiments where we've done
simulations of sponsorship. What if, for example, this is a
kind of grassroots community sport, we replace the kit that
kids are given at the start of their enrollment in
Milo cricket or Macca's Little Athletics with a healthy sponsor.
(19:07):
And we have found that if you apply those marketing
principles to healthful products, they similarly build brand awareness, promote
the appeal of the product.
And sports related marketing is really interesting, particularly in relation
to junk food, because, you know, we all have in
our minds an image of sport as a sort of healthy,
(19:28):
vital kind of pursuit. And so, again, it's, it's deeply psychological,
this sort of building these associations that every time a
goal's kicked in the footy match, we zoom in on
the Macca's logo on the fence, and so on. And
it's sort of
implicitly creating this notion of, you can eat crap as
long as you burn it up with activity or whatever.
(19:49):
And if there's a lot of that linkage, like there
was a phase a while ago of pedometers given away
with sugary breakfast cereal. But the other thing about sports
sponsorship is it's a highly emotional context, and
Um, you know, with persuasion, there are affective and cognitive components. And,
and if we associate a brand with this sort of
(20:11):
exciting event that people are invested in with attractive, fit,
healthy athletes and celebs and so on, it's, it's a
great kind of promotional strategy.
Cassie (20:22):
But it also implies that the athletes are eating that food.
Helen (20:25):
Yes. And that's another thing we've done research on is
counter-advertising strategies. So if you actually direct consumers' attention upstream
to exposing the marketing tactics of, of these harmful industries,
be it gambling, tobacco, or, or junk food. We
(20:46):
did another trial where around the NRL finals a couple
of years ago, we knew they were gonna have heavy
alcohol sponsorship. And we had a professionally produced ad that
exposed and critiqued alcohol sponsorship, and we tested that against
a traditional public health ad focusing on the downstream health
(21:07):
harms of alcohol. And so we sent people links, and
they watched this counter ad in the lead up to
watching the alcohol sponsored event.
And we followed them up, and what we found was
that the counter ad exposing industry marketing, it also had
the kind of effect of promoting reduced intentions to drink alcohol,
(21:28):
so it could potentially assist with curbing personal alcohol intake.
But it also made the audience members more critical of
the alcohol sponsor brands and view them less favourably, and
they saw more of a mismatch between those products
and the sport, and it increased their support for policy
(21:49):
to restrict that form of marketing. So that's an interesting strategy.
Cassie (21:52):
But on that, I mean, back when I was a kid,
cigarette companies sponsored sport, which seems bizarre today, but that's
just how it was. And, you know, in 10 years
or so, do you think that's how we'll look at
fast food sponsorship and advertising in, in sport?
Jane (22:07):
I think we will.
The leading burden of disease used to be tobacco. Now
it's obesity, and then, you know, up there too is diet.
So this is a really serious health problem, and we're
setting our children up, using all these kinds of techniques
in particular, for an unhealthy future. And 1 in 2
Australians are living with a chronic disease. So, you know,
these are preventable diseases on the whole, that are, are
(22:31):
growing, and they're starting at quite young ages, um, as well.
So this is really problematic. You know, half of women
during pregnancy are above healthy weight. So there's epigenetic effects
of that, and we know that it's similar to tobacco.
We're getting this uptake, and the poor diets are really
getting much worse during adolescence. Adolescents are targeted with this
(22:53):
marketing and advertising. The social norms are very far away from,
you know, healthy, nourishing
Um, diets and unprocessed foods. So we need to sort
of start to tip this. And as we start to
look to changing and denormalising ultra-processed foods, we will be
looking to the same sort of techniques that were used
(23:14):
in tobacco control, and they were, you know, around the marketing,
and we know how powerful sport is for those, all
those reasons we've just touched on.
It's just such, you know, a juxtaposition around the product.
I mean, it's so clever. So that, and it doesn't
happen in all countries. So those sorts of, um, relationships
need to be blasted apart, and we really need to
(23:36):
sort of shift our whole food system. It's a big change,
but unless we do that, our health system will not
be able to manage, you know, in the UK they've
looked
at the NHS and, and can it cope? It can't.
We're in exactly the same boat. We won't have a healthy,
productive workforce, and we won't have a, a health system
that is able to do all the things that we'll
(23:57):
need to do, even now, let alone if this continues.
So I think the future is grim, unless the levers
are pulled, and we know what those levers are. Marketing's
a huge one, price is a big one, availability.
So all those kinds of things are important, and we
need to look what does, what are those hard decisions
that politicians will need to make to reshape our environment
(24:20):
and support a healthy local food system.
And stop the commodification. And really, these corporations are selling
these products, they're not paying for the true cost of
the outcomes that they are, uh, you know, that they
are creating. So it's these externalities, like dental health and things.
(24:41):
That are, you know, they're getting away with it right now.
I just can't see that continuing because the economy just
will not cope. So those times will come, I suspect.
So
Nick (24:52):
it's big and it's scary and it's complex, but let's
say you had a magic policy wand and you could
change one thing, what would you do?
Helen (24:59):
If you look at the Australian dietary guidelines or the
healthy eating pyramid was what was used when we were kids.
Now they have a, a circle that's a bit like
a dinner plate.
You know, it's these whole foods that are recommended, high
in plant foods, lean proteins, etc. And off to the side,
they have discretionary foods, which tend to be these sort
(25:20):
of sweet and salty snack foods, chips, etc.
What we actually find, you know, people think, Oh, you,
you know, you're being too serious. Kids just having the
occasional treat. We actually know from our big nutrition surveys
that about 40% of kids' daily energy intake is coming
from these discretionary foods, which are really recommended to be
(25:42):
kind of sometimes foods, not everyday foods. And we also
know from research monitoring, food marketing.
That basically, the food marketing environment is the healthy eating
pyramid tipped upside down, and, and so these energy dense,
nutrient poor discretionary foods that we're meant to be eating
(26:02):
the least of are the most heavily promoted.
We've also done a recent research, uh, looking at school
canteen menus and finding that these foods are cheaper too, and,
and particularly in Australia with the high cost of whole
foods and groceries at the moment.
That would be my wish that we reconfigure food settings
(26:25):
and so on to nudge consumers to healthy options.
Jane (26:30):
Now, one of the reasons we're not getting the, um,
traction that we need is because of the power of
corporate interests. It's the same as in climate change, and
the emphasis is put back onto the individual. We've been
talking exactly how the individuals,
You know, how would the individual assesses something as being
hijacked through, you know, understanding the psychology of how, how
(26:51):
humans interpret information and make decisions, so I think,
Um, we really need to see some pushback against these
commercial interests. They're making profit out of this. I mean,
why they want to sort of slowly poison their consumers,
I'm not sure, but what we've seen is these cheap ingredients,
making these foods which are also very cheap. They're very
(27:14):
heavily promoted. So we need
to rebalance, and the only way to rebalance is to
use these regulatory levers. I think that's the only way
we'll see change. And it will be interesting to see
how this plays out in the baby toddler space. This
is a little subset of these, you know, processed and packaged,
some less processed foods, but it would just be interesting
to see how that might change, um, the market.
(27:37):
Um, and it will incentivize and once you get that
economy of scale, it creates new opportunities for industry and
innovation to occur, and I think that's really important, but
if you just rely on individuals to change their behaviour,
It's not gonna work. 9 in 10 adults, and the
same with kids, aren't eating a healthy diet. So, and
it's not because they're not trying or don't care. That's
(28:00):
absolutely not why that's happening. It's it's everything else in
the mix. So we shouldn't keep on pushing individuals to change.
We have to make the environment supportive of them having
healthy diets, and they need healthy nourishing food.
to be able to do that.
Cassie (28:16):
Until we get to that space where the system is healthier,
what can individuals do, just in terms of, is it
slowing down when they're shopping and not falling for those
marketing traps? What can we do? I know we shouldn't
be pushing the burden onto the individual consumer, but until
that system level change happens, what can our listeners kind
of take into their grocery shopping?
Helen (28:39):
Well, if they've got time, obviously, whole foods, you kind
of know what you're getting, and, and we talked earlier
about the issues with product composition, but for packaged food,
you want to be sure that what it says on
the front of the pack matches what's actually in there.
But there are some strategies if you've got time to
look at the ingredients list. Often the length, the, the
(29:01):
number of ingredients or the number of numbers in the
ingredients is a bit of an indicator that it's a
highly processed product.
Um, I mean, there's a degree of processing of food,
but the ultra-processed food, it tends to go hand in
hand with being high in nutrients of concern like salt
and sugar.
Um, it being energy dense and nutrient poor is what
(29:24):
we often say. So short ingredients list, comparing the column
that compares key nutrients, both beneficial and, and nutrients of concern,
per 100 gram, you can look at those sorts of attributes. But, um,
I think if it has ingredients that you wouldn't find
in a real person's pantry, just in a factory, that's
(29:46):
a bit of a telltale sign.
Jane (29:48):
We've got some great campaigns they could join if they
want to make changes. So we've got our campaign around
healthier food for kids, which is called Kids are Sweet Enough.
Sign up. We've got another campaign about protecting children from
unhealthy food marketing. We've got a paper going to the
Health Minister on the feasibility of regulation. So it could
be on the table. We've got Jamie Oliver and others
who've supported that call for action. So,
(30:12):
You know, that is a place to, to come to
where we're at the Food for Health Alliance. So we,
we'd love to engage with people who feel passionate and
would like to see change around those two things.
Cassie (30:23):
Thank you for sharing with us, Helen and Jane. And listeners,
if you're wanting more information about today's topic, we'll put
some links to Helen and Jane's work and campaigns in
the show notes. But thank you, both of you for
joining us today.
Helen and Jane (30:36):
Thank you.
Cassie (30:39):
You've been listening to PsychTalks with our wonderful guests, Associate
Professor Helen Dixon and Jane Martin. We'd like to thank
them for today and you, our listeners at home, for
coming along for the ride for another great season. If
you'd like to show your support, please make sure you're
a subscriber, and we hope to be back here next year.
Nick (30:57):
This episode was produced by Carly Godden with support from
Mairead Murray and Gemma Papprill. Sound engineering by Jack Palmer.
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