Healthy foods have a bad image in popular American culture. A recent study published in Health Psychologyopens in new window found that top-grossing Hollywood movies tend to portray food in different contexts and associate food with different character behaviors depending on the food’s healthiness. Although past research has found that movies tend to frequently depict unhealthy foods, less work has examined whether movies systematically differ in the ways that they depict healthy and unhealthy foods. For example, do movies portray healthy and unhealthy foods in different types of settings and contexts? Do movie characters behave or react differently to healthy and unhealthy foods? Given that movies may not only reflect but also replicate and reinforce culturally normative beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, it is worth understanding how healthy and unhealthy foods are portrayed in popular movies. The research team conducting the study therefore aimed to understand whether aspects of the broader context in which food appeared (e.g., American settings, social situations) or character interactions with food (e.g., consumption, evaluation, character demographics) differed on the basis of a food’s nutritional quality.
To understand how food is portrayed in movies, the research team conducted a preregistered analysis of the food that appeared in 244 movies—the 10 top-grossing movies from each year between 1994 and 2018 that included depictions of food and were available on a streaming service. The researchers identified 9,093 foods that appeared in this sample of movies and assigned each food a nutrition score. Nutrition scores were calculated using the Nutrient Profile Index, a validated nutrition rating system in which points are awarded for food components that should be encouraged (e.g., fiber, protein) and points are subtracted for food components that should be avoided (e.g., sugar, saturated fat). Two members of the research team also watched all the scenes that contained food to code the broader context of and character interactions with each food.
The researchers found that foods depicted in American settings and foods that characters were eating with others were less healthy than foods shown in non-American and nonsocial contexts, respectively. Regarding character behaviors, foods that characters in movies actually consumed (i.e., characters were shown taking a bite) were less healthy than foods that were not consumed. Similarly, foods that characters evaluated positively (e.g, “Try one of these, they are divine!”) were less healthy than foods that characters evaluated negatively (e.g., “What are you serving here? This stuff is nasty”). Finally, although the researchers coded the gender, body mass index category, and perceived race and ethnicity of the characters who interacted with the food, these characteristics were not associated with the healthiness of the food. This may have been due to a relatively low number of diverse characters appearing in the movies. Child characters, however, compared to adult characters, consumed food that was significantly less healthy, evaluated healthy foods more negatively, and evaluated unhealthy foods more positively.
The results highlight that the portrayal of food in movies may depend on the food’s healthiness. These movies may reflect, in part, widely endorsed beliefs about normative behaviors and attitudes toward healthy and unhealthy foods. At the same time, however, by replicating these patterns, movies may continue to reinforce the idea that healthy foods are less American, less social, less frequently consumed, and less enjoyable than unhealthy foods. Future research can test the effect of movie portrayals of food on audiences’ beliefs and behaviors.
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