You Are What You Eat: A Randomised Controlled Trial of an Appearance-based Dietary Intervention

Summary

This study investigated whether illustration of the facial appearance benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption is able to motivate increased intake of this food group. The investigators hypothesize that individuals witnessing illustrations of the impact of a healthy diet will exhibit improvements in diet relative to a control group receiving only information on the health-benefits of this food group.

Conditions

• Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Information-only

Selected pages from the British National Health Service (NHS) information booklets \["5 A Day, Just Eat More (fruit \& veg)"; pages i, ii, 12-15, 20 \& 21\] and \["5 A Day, Just Eat More (fruit \& veg): What's it all about?"; pages i-ii)\] were provided to all participants on completion of baseline questionnaires. The pages provided information on recommended portion sizes, meal planning, health benefits and answered frequently asked diet-related questions

BEHAVIORAL

Generic appearance intervention

Participants in the generic appearance intervention group received images to illustrate the impact of fruit and vegetable consumption on skin appearance. Participants in this group were presented with gender congruent stimuli, constructed by averaging the facial shape and colour of four male/female faces. Participants viewed the gender-congruent set of the resulting stimuli in two forms. Firstly, after completion of baseline questionnaires, images were displayed on a computer monitor. Participants were instructed to select what they perceived as the healthiest face colour, which was recorded by the computer program over two trials. Participants in this group also received a take-home photo quality leaflet to further illustrate the effect of fruit and vegetable consumption on skin colour.

BEHAVIORAL

Personalised appearance intervention

Participants in this group received stimuli manipulated in identical ways to that received by the generic appearance-intervention group, except the illustrations were performed upon images of the participant's own face.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Unilever R&D

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• Perception Lab

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ross D Whitehead, MSc · University of St Andrews

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

61 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2011-02-28

Primary Completion

2011-06-30

Completion

2011-06-30

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations