An Exploration of health-consciousness and Character Weight as Factors Influencing Adolescents’ Perceptions of a Healthy Food Ad

ABSTRACT Using the framework of the elaboration likelihood model, this study investigated the role of health-consciousness as a motivator for adolescents, 12–17 years of age, to assess a healthy food advertisement. Alternatively, the study investigated whether lower health-conscious youth would use the appearance of characters in advertising as a peripheral cue to evaluate the food. Data confirmed that those adolescents lower in health consciousness, and higher in Body Mass Index, can be encouraged to like a healthy food if the associated character is thin. While the body positivity movement is making advances in limiting bias against overweight by encouraging the portrayal of heavier models, these efforts could be detrimental to the audience most in need of effective promotions for healthy foods. Instead, this study contributes to the marketing literature by asserting that the peripheral cue of body size can be used to better promote healthy foods to overweight youth.