Tempting the Palate, Testing the Conscience: How Health Cues Shape the Allure of Vice Foods

This research investigates whether language prompting thoughts of healthfulness, health cues, can play a pivotal yet understated role in enhancing purchase intentions of vice foods among consumers with varying levels of health consciousness, and explores the underlying mechanisms involving perceived tastiness and guilt. Results from three experiments show that labeling the same product with a vegetable‐based cue that conveys a stronger health image, compared to a meat‐based cue that conveys a weaker health image, significantly increases purchase intentions among highly health‐conscious consumers by reducing perceived guilt, despite offering less perceived tastiness. In contrast, for low health‐conscious consumers, the key driver of purchase intentions is perceived tastiness elicited by meat‐based labels, while their perceived guilt does not vary between vegetable and meat‐based labels. Furthermore, when additional health‐related claims such as “reduced sodium” or “natural and additive‐free” are appended to the same product label, they also enhance purchase intentions among highly health‐conscious consumers by lowering perceived guilt. However, for low health‐conscious consumers, such claims may backfire due to concerns over diminished tastiness.