Eat your way to a golden glow

We all know we should eat five fruit or vegetables a day to maintain a healthy diet, it is instilled in us as children and taught to use throughout school and through many adverts and government campaigns. Government campaigns have websites and recipes to help us achieve these five a day aim and to ensure we can all meet this quota. However, it seems that many of us do not achieve this five a day aim as there is nothing for us to strive towards such as weight loss or to become more attractive which we desire to become so we change our diets.

According to this research published in the American Journal of Public Health, eating five pieces of fruit or vegetables a day can give you a healthier ‘golden’ glow to make you feel more attractive within weeks. The impact of red, orange and yellow pigments found in fruit and vegetables such as tomatoes, carrots and peppers have this effect on the skin. It is believed that highlighting these benefits of a healthy diet on attractiveness will be a strong incentive for healthy eating and will lead consumers to eat more of their ‘five a day’.

This advert that I have created uses social comparison theory as a persuasion method. This theory as described by Festinger, 1954 explains how consumers compare themselves to the images seen in adverts. This can lead to the consumer wanting to be more like the image or person shown in the advert. This desire can lead to the consumer carrying out the desired action so as to be like the image in the advert.

This can be seen in this advert that the picture clearly shows a lady changing from being pale to having a healthy golden glow and claims this is due to her eating her five fruit and vegetables a day. This golden glow is a desirable look that many women strive for. This leads consumers to believe that should they eat their five fruit and vegetables a day, their skin will become less pale and will lead to what has been described as a healthy and golden glow which is extremely desirable. Therefore, these consumers that want skin like the lady in the advert are more likely to buy and eat their five a day as they now believe that they are good for you and lead to this desired skin type.

Whitehead, R. D., Ozakinci, G., Stephen, I. D., & Perrett, D. I. (2012). Appealing to vanity: could potential appearance improvement motivate fruit and vegetable consumption?. American journal of public health, 102(2), 207-211.

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human relations, 7(2), 117-140.

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/5aday/Pages/5ADAYhome.aspx