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The value of facial attractiveness for encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption: analyses from a randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: An effect of increased fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption on facial attractiveness has been proposed and recommended as a strategy to promote FV intakes, but no studies to date demonstrate a causal link between FV consumption and perceived attractiveness. This study investigated perceptions of attractiveness before and after the supervised consumption of 2, 5 or 8 FV portions/day for 4 weeks in 30 low FV consumers. Potential mechanisms for change via skin colour and perceived skin healthiness were also investigated.Faces were photographed at the start and end of the 4 week intervention in controlled conditions. Seventy-three independent individuals subsequently rated all 60 photographs in a randomized order, for facial attractiveness, facial skin yellowness, redness, healthiness, clarity, and symmetry.Using clustered multiple regression, FV consumption over the previous 4 weeks had no direct effect on attractiveness, but, for female faces, some evidence was found for an indirect impact, via linear and non-linear changes in skin yellowness. Effect sizes, however, were small. No association between FV consumption and skin healthiness was found, but skin healthiness was associated with facial attractiveness.Controlled and objectively measured increases in FV consumption for 4 weeks resulted indirectly in increased attractiveness in females via increases in skin yellowness, but effects are small and gradually taper as FV consumption increases. Based on the effect sizes from this study, we are hesitant to recommend the use of facial attractiveness to encourage increased FV consumption.Clinical trial Registration Number NCT01591057 ( www.clinicaltrials.gov ). Registered: 27th April, 2012.

SUBMITTER: Appleton KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5831823 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The value of facial attractiveness for encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption: analyses from a randomized controlled trial.

Appleton Katherine M KM McGrath Alanna J AJ McKinley Michelle C MC Draffin Claire R CR Hamill Lesley L LL Young Ian S IS Woodside Jayne V JV

BMC public health 20180301 1

<h4>Background</h4>An effect of increased fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption on facial attractiveness has been proposed and recommended as a strategy to promote FV intakes, but no studies to date demonstrate a causal link between FV consumption and perceived attractiveness. This study investigated perceptions of attractiveness before and after the supervised consumption of 2, 5 or 8 FV portions/day for 4 weeks in 30 low FV consumers. Potential mechanisms for change via skin colour and perceive ...[more]

PMID: 29490640

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Project description:BackgroundModifying the environment to promote healthy foods is a population-based approach for improving diet. This study evaluated the outcome effectiveness of a food store intervention that used structural and social change strategies to promote fruits and vegetables. It was hypothesized that intervention versus control store customers would improve their consumption of fruits and vegetables at 6 months.Trial designClustered randomized controlled trial METHODS: Sixteen pair-matched stores were randomized to an intervention or wait-list control condition. With the research team's support, intervention stores modified the availability, accessibility, and promotion of fruits and vegetables, including augmenting produce displays within the store and building employees' capacity to place and promote fruits and vegetables throughout the store (Phase 1), followed by the delivery of a customer-directed marketing campaign for 6 months (Phase 2). From months 7 to 12, stores were encouraged to maintain strategies on their own (Phase 3). Customer-reported daily fruit and vegetable consumption (cups/day) were collected by blinded research assistants at three time-points (baseline, 6 months and 12 months post-baseline) from 369 participating customers (an average of 23/store). Secondary outcomes included customer-reported fruit and vegetable purchasing and other behaviors.ResultsThe study retained the 16 stores and most customers at 6 (91%) and 12 (89%) months. Although significant differences were not observed in the overall sample for vegetable consumption, male customers of intervention versus control stores consumed significantly more fruit daily at 6 months [mean (standard deviation) cups at baseline and six months; intervention: 1.6 (1.5) to 1.6 (1.5) vs. control: 1.4 (1.2) to 1.1 (0.8)]. However, this difference was not observed at 12 months, or among females. There was an overall increase in dollars spent at the targeted store in the intervention versus control condition among male versus female customers at 6 months; however, no change was observed in the percent of dollars spent on fruits and vegetables at the targeted store. Frequency of shopping at the targeted store did not modify intervention effects.ConclusionsStructural and social change interventions can modify customers' behavior in the short-term. Future research should consider methods for achieving longer-term changes, and potential generalizability to other products (e.g., energy-dense sweet and savory products).Trial registrationNCT01475526.

Project description:Grafting has become an imperative for intensive vegetable production since chlorofluorocarbon-based soil fumigants were banned from use on grounds of environmental protection. Compelled by this development, research into rootstock-scion interaction has broadened the potential applications of grafting in the vegetable industry beyond aspects of soil phytopathology. Grafting has been increasingly tapped for cultivation under adverse environs posing abiotic and biotic stresses to vegetable crops, thus enabling expansion of commercial production onto otherwise under-exploited land. Vigorous rootstocks have been employed not only in the open field but also under protected cultivation where increase in productivity improves distribution of infrastructural and energy costs. Applications of grafting have expanded mainly in two families: the Cucurbitaceae and the Solanaceae, both of which comprise major vegetable crops. As the main drives behind the expansion of vegetable grafting have been the resistance to soilborne pathogens, tolerance to abiotic stresses and increase in yields, rootstock selection and breeding have accordingly conformed to the prevailing demand for improving productivity, arguably at the expense of fruit quality. It is, however, compelling to assess the qualitative implications of this growing agronomic practice for human nutrition. Problems of impaired vegetable fruit quality have not infrequently been associated with the practice of grafting. Accordingly, the aim of the current review is to reassess how the practice of grafting and the prevalence of particular types of commercial rootstocks influence vegetable fruit quality and, partly, storability. Physical, sensorial and bioactive aspects of quality are examined with respect to grafting for watermelon, melon, cucumber, tomato, eggplant, and pepper. The physiological mechanisms at play which mediate rootstock effects on scion performance are discussed in interpreting the implications of grafting for the configuration of vegetable fruit physicochemical quality and nutritive value.

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The value of facial attractiveness for encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption: analyses from a randomized controlled trial.

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The value of facial attractiveness for encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption: analyses from a randomized controlled trial.

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