Promovendus Club Doctoral Program in Psychology UGM once again held a Kolokium Dua Mingguan (KDM) event with the topic “Food Choice and Sugar Intake: Promoting Healthy Eating in the Obesogenic Environment through Priming and Nudging Methods” (18/11). This topic was discussed by the main speaker, namely Ana Undarwati Ph.D who is a lecturer and researcher at Semarang State University. The purpose of holding this event is to become a forum for information and sharing related research that has been carried out by presenting competent speakers. In addition, this KDM activity is part of a series of activities for the 58th Anniversary of the UGM Faculty of Psychology.
“Thank you, this morning there were quite a lot of participants, it was extraordinary. Even though it’s online, we, from the Faculty of Psychology, Gadjah Mada University, especially the Doctoral Study Program in Psychology, would like to say hello and thank you for your enthusiasm for all attending this morning’s event,” said Edilburga Wulan Saptandari, Ph.D Psychologist as Head of the Doctoral Program in Psychology.
At the beginning of the event, Ana asked the participants about diet, “Are you on a diet program? It’s okay to answer silently because actually this question is also sensitive for me”. Ana admitted that she had been on a diet program for years and it didn’t work. “So, it was from the trauma of dieting that I had the idea to explore this (diet)”, said Ana.
According to Ana, each individual must have had thoughts about managing their diet. “I will start by sharing diet experiences.” Ana shared that she had started dieting for 6 years after giving birth, but there were no significant results. Even though this diet problem is a long-term problem which later if not regulated will lead to overweight and even obesity.
“So, some say that obesity is a silent killer. If you eat something delicious like cake now, maybe the effect won’t be right away. However, when it (eating cake) becomes a habit, it will have long-term effects.” In addition, environmental factors also support or actually hinder the diet program or can be called the attention and behavior gap. You could even say, the current environment is an obesogenic environment, which means access and availability is very easy, food trends change quickly, faced with a variety of fatty food choices and large portions.
From research conducted by Ana, information can be obtained that the fake food (study 1) provided evidence than non-conscious cognitive routes intervention (i.e., implicit priming) potentially works better for individuals with a higher BMI. Nudging is more effectively applied in an individual context compared to when in a group context (sweetened tea experiment study: study 2). Combining nudging and competition interventions has the potential to reach a saturation effect.
Photo by Faran Raufi on Unsplash