Obesity has become an increasingly serious problem around the world and regarded as one of the major risks to
human health. Many factors such as more wealth and food accessibility may
explain its prevalence. Now, there is a possible psychological explanation as
well.
A recent research study by The Chinese University
of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School titled “Mere Experience of Low
Subjective Socioeconomic Status Stimulates Appetite and Food Intake”
published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America (PNAS) reveals that feelings of occupying lower socioeconomic
status can make us consume more food, and fatty food, in particular.
The study was conducted by Ying-yi Hong, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Marketing of
Department of Marketing and Principal Investigator of Culture Lab at CUHK
Business School, together with her former post-doctorate fellow Bobby Cheon,
now an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University’s School of
Humanities and Social Sciences, Singapore.
Subjective Socioeconomic Status Matters
According to the study, there has not
been much attention on the impact of subjective socioeconomic status on
people’s obesity in the study of diet-related health. Unlike objective
indicators of socioeconomic status, such as actual income, education, or
occupational status, subjective socioeconomic status is largely based on
perceived relative possession of material and social resources compared with
others.
“Even people with a decent job or
wage could feel inferior if they are surrounded by people whom they see as
richer and better off,” says Prof. Hong.
According to Prof. Hong, there are no
studies to date which have tested whether the mere psychological experience of
low subjective socioeconomic status would stimulate appetite and caloric
intakes. However, she believes that such subjective socioeconomic status may be
sufficient to stimulate appetite and consumption of greater calories.
“When people are facing low
socioeconomic status, they may feel deprived, which in turn make them take an
adaptive response to seize and exploit other resources for survival. One of
such resources is food,” Prof. Hong explains.
The Studies and Key Findings
For the purpose of the research, four
experiments were carried out.
In the first study, 101 participants in
Singapore were asked to think of a ladder as representing where people stand in
Singapore. Then they were asked to compare themselves to the people at the very
bottom/top of the ladder, who are the people having the least/most money, and
with the least/most education and least/most respected jobs. Participants who
compared themselves with people at the very bottom would experience a high
subjective socioeconomic status (SSES), whereas those who compared with people at
the very top would experience a low SSES.
Following the comparison, participants
were asked to select what they would eat for their next meal from a
hypothetical buffet. Calories of the food they selected were estimated. The
results showed that the participants in the low SSES condition were more likely
to pick high-calorie foods than did those in the high SSES condition.
“The result suggests that low
socioeconomic status may increase people’s motivation and intention to consume
more foods, or food with higher calories,” Prof. Hong says.
In the second study, using the same
comparison of social status as in the first study, 167 people were tested on
their “implicit” evaluation of both high-calorie foods, such as
pizzas and burgers, and low-calorie foods, such as vegetables and fruit. The
result again showed that participants in the low SSES condition, in comparison
with those in the high SSES condition, were more likely to associate
high-calorie with pleasant words, such as tasty delicious, wonderful, rather
than unpleasant words, such as disgusting, nasty and awful, indicating that
they subconsciously preferred high-calorie foods.
“When people are facing low
socioeconomic status, they may feel deprived, which in turn make them take an
adaptive response to seize and exploit other resources for survival. One of
such resources is food,” Prof. Hong says.
To examine whether the experience of
low socioeconomic stimulates actual food intake from snacks during a fixed time
interval, a third study was performed. Similar with the first and second
studies, the same experimental manipulation of socioeconomic status was
conducted with 83 participants who then viewed a short documentary video while
freely eating three snacks (potato chips, M&M candies, and California
raisins). The result showed that participants in the low SSES condition
consumed 65 percent more calories than those in the high SSES condition.
“Feeling socioeonomically inferior
not only changes the perception of food but can trigger your actual food
intake,” Prof. Hong points out.
In the last study, the research looked
at whether low socioeconomic status would stimulate food intake when larger
portions were provided in a meal. After comparing their socioeconomic status as
before, 148 participants were each given a big bowl of noodles and asked to eat
until they were comfortably full. Consistent with the previous experiments,
participants who felt they were of a lower status consumed more, specifically,
an average of 201 grams (or 20 percent more) as compared with 169 grams of
those who felt the opposite.
“Across four experiments, we found
that participants who felt they’re of low socioeconomic status subsequently exhibited
greater automatic preferences for high-calorie foods, and also actually ate
more,” Prof. Hong comments.
Social status, she said, acts as ‘a
buffer or insurance’ against pressure. Without the protection afforded by
higher social status, people may switch to seek the protection offered by other
available resources — such as food.
So What Does it Mean to Us?
All studies have demonstrated that the
mere mindset or subjective feeling of lower socioeconomic status and standing
when compared with others may contribute to obesity and metabolic disease
independent of actual economic deprivation. As such, the study sheds light on
potential interventions to curb the obesity pandemic.
“Given that simply feeling
inferior to other people could be sufficient to alter our diets and healthy
lifestyle, we believe certain measures could be taken to tackle the growing
obesity and overweight problem in our society.”
“Intervention focusing solely on
reducing such material and financial barriers may not be sufficient to address
the issue of obesity and diabetes in our society. Our result suggests that
intervention should be focused on people’s subjective experience of low
socioeconomic status. For example, helping low status individuals to feel
secured and empowered may buffer their sense of relative deprivation. At the
societal level, we would need to fix the problem of social inequality, reducing
the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. Indeed, other research has
shown that greater levels of income inequality were associated with higher
rates of obesity, diabetes mortality rates, and daily caloric intake across
wealthy nations. These findings together with mine underscore the importance of
reducing social inequality as a way to curb the obesity pandemic,” Prof.
Hong remarks.
Reference:
B. K. Cheon and Y. Hong (2017), “Mere experience of low subjective socioeconomic status
stimulates appetite and food intake,” Proceedings of National Academy
of Sciences, 114(1), 72-77.
This article
was first published in the China Business Knowledge (CBK) website by CUHK
Business School: https://bit.ly/2KdwAL4.
About CUHK Business School
CUHK
Business School comprises two schools — Accountancy and Hotel and
Tourism Management — and four departments — Decision Sciences and
Managerial Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing. Established
in Hong Kong in 1963, it is the first business school to offer BBA, MBA and
Executive MBA programs in the region. Today, the School offers 8
undergraduate programs and 13 graduate programs including
MBA, EMBA, Master, MSc, MPhil and
Ph.D.
In
the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2018,
CUHK MBA is ranked 43rd. In FT‘s 2017 EMBA ranking, CUHK EMBA is ranked 32nd
in the world. CUHK Business School has the largest number of business alumni (34,000+)
worldwide
– many of whom are key business leaders. The School currently has about
4,400 undergraduate and postgraduate students and Professor
Kalok Chan is the Dean of CUHK Business School.
More information is available at: http://www.bschool.cuhk.edu.hk or by connecting with CUHK Business School on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cuhkbschool and LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/school/3923680/.
