Social norms help sway food choices


MAKING HEALTHY FOOD choices is not easy in an environment in which high-calorie foods are easily available and highly visible. One way of encouraging healthier eating is to provide information about the healthy eating habits of others, says new research from the University of Birmingham. Researchers from the four-year study found that informing university students that their peers are actually eating small amounts of ‘junk food’ reduces students’ junk food choices. Similarly, informing students who did not eat much fruit and vegetables that their peers eat more of these foods than they might think prompts healthier food intake. Moreover, merely being told that other people enjoyed eating vegetables increased the likelihood of study participants selecting broccoli to eat, and this effect lasted for at least 24 hours.


The data from these laboratory- based studies were used to design an intervention to promote purchase of vegetables with lunch in a workplace restaurant. “The evidence suggests that social norms can be used to promote the selection of nutritious foods such as fruit and vegetables wherever people may select or consume food, including supermarkets and cafeterias and schools,” explains researcher Suzanne Higgs, Professor in the Psychobiology of Appetite. n


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Contact Professor Suzanne Higgs, University of Birmingham Email s.higgs.1@bham.ac.uk Telephone 0121 414 4907 ESRC Grant Number ES/K002678/1


Communities’ input into post-disaster recovery


is key to achieving better outcomes and longer-term recovery, says research into the effectiveness of the aid efforts to the Visayas region of the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. Typhoon Yolanda, the deadliest Philippine typhoon on record in the modern era, left at least 6,300 people dead, four million more displaced and over a million homes destroyed. The total number of people affected by the typhoon, in terms of livelihood, environmental and food security, was approximately 16 million. In a three-year collaborative


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project, researchers at the University of Nottingham, UK and the University of Nottingham, Ningbo (China), in partnership with the University of the Philippines, have worked closely with local communities to identify the lessons from Typhoon Yolanda. The research team carried out 200 interviews with NGOs and local government personnel; held 50 focus groups with local people; and undertook three annual surveys (2015 to 2017) in 800 households from the region.


8 SOCIETY NOW WINTER 2018


ISTENING TO AND involving communities at the design, planning and implementation stages of post-disaster recovery


Findings indicate that community rebuilding is more sustainable when communities are actively involved in schemes such as ‘sweat equity’, where beneficiaries donate their labour to the housing schemes that they will eventually occupy, and in the design and planning stages of their communities. However, the findings also revealed examples of lip service being paid to community involvement without it happening in a sustainable fashion. For sustainable rehabilitation to take place, more work needs to be done to engage the most vulnerable people within communities, such as women and ‘own account’ (or self-employed workers). “Our research has contributed to the awareness of NGOs – including foreign aid agencies, and some national and local policymakers and government officials – of the need to further engage local communities in the rebuilding and rehabilitation of their communities,” Dr Pauline Eadie concludes. n


i Contact Dr Pauline Eadie, University


of Nottingham Email pauline.eadie@nottingham.ac.uk Web www.projectyolanda.org Telephone 0115 951 4867/07759545100 ESRC Grant Number ES/M008932/1


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