Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

In this research, we examine how an aspect of visual design, specifically the size of a food image, can impact consumers’ choice of healthier foods. We show that manipulating the image size of healthy food items such that they appear larger than normal will increase perceptions of taste, quality, and preference. Our studies, including an image-mining study that collected data from Instagram food images, show that only healthy food items benefit from this increase in food image size while no difference is found for unhealthy foods. These findings provide several contributions to theory and practice. First, this research contributes to marketing literature related to health by showing that whereas healthy choices are more difficult to make, enlarged images of food can improve decision-making results. Second, this research contributes to public policy by indicating a method through which public health officials can present food choices that can contribute to healthier consumer decisions. This work also adds to research in the visual design domain by highlighting how a larger image size can have a positive impact on healthy food evaluations and preferences.