How will my clients react?

Personal relevance is a key concept in nutrition communication. Messages that are not perceived as relevant do not induce motivation to behavior change. Health threats and recommended actions in nutrition communication are mostly based on research on population or target-group level. They therefore often fail to induce feelings of personal relevance. It is known from research that tailoring to personal characteristics will increase the effectiveness of communication in influencing motivation for behavior change.

In theory on behavior change, several concepts can be identified as ‘personal factors’. The message on the health threat or benefit needs to be personally relevant to attract attention and induce feelings of severity and vulnerability. The following recommended action not only needs to be perceived as effective in reducing the health threat but people need to feel capable of performing this action (self-efficacy). 

Well known psychological concepts in several stages of the behavior change process can influence this reaction. The first stage is the (lack of) capacity to create awareness on the need for healthy eating. Selective perception and cognitive dissonance result in ignoring communication that is not in line with one’s own perception of food and health. Also, misperception or unrealistic optimistic biases on personal nutrition behavior can lead to misperception of personal risk, also resulting in defining nutrition communication as personally irrelevant. The second stage is the threat appraisal in which defense motivation can lead to ignoring of the communication. Also, unrealistic optimism can lead to feelings of personal invulnerability, resulting in low perceived personal relevance. Uncertainties in scientific evidence on the relation between food and health can weaken messages on consequences of unhealthy eating, thereby influencing perceived severity. Scientific insights on the interaction between food and health on an individual level is still in its infancy, thereby reducing opportunities to communicate on personal vulnerability. The third stage is the appraisal of the coping strategy. Important motivating elements of coping strategy are perceived effectiveness of the recommended action and perceived self-efficacy. As in the threat appraisal, uncertainties on the relation between food and health can interfere with messages on effectiveness of recommended actions. The lack of scientific insight on effectiveness on an individual level can further decrease feelings of personal relevance. Perceived self-efficacy or perceived behavioral control is also an important part of the coping strategy. It refers to the perception about how easy or difficult it is to perform a specific behavior and their perception about whether they are able to perform the required behavior or not.

The relative new science of nutrigenomics examines the response of our genes, proteins and metabolism to different food compounds. Eventually, nutrigenomics will lead to evidence-based dietary intervention strategies for restoring health and fitness and for preventing diet-related disease. Several personal factors in behavior change theory can be influenced by knowledge resulting from nutrigenomics science.

Increasing awareness of personal behaviour can be induced by the assessment on lifestyle required for genetic testing and by feedback on test results.  This can lead to less misperceptions of personal risk. The most promising contribution to behaviour change might lie in the reduction of uncertainties on a general and personal level. Nutrigenomics science is expected to give more insights on the relation between food and health in general and on strategies that prevent nutrition-related diseases. These insights might provide a stronger based for communication on severity of disease. On a personal level, advice based on genetic testing can provide insight on individual vulnerability to nutrition-related illnesses and on effectiveness of preventive strategies, thereby strengthening messages targeting at perceived personal vulnerability and perceived efficacy of recommended actions. Thereby, optimistic bias that leads to feelings of invulnerability can be avoided. But information on individual genetic make-up can also have undesired effects on motivation for behaviour change. It is known that when fear appeals become too strong, some people will react defensively, which leads to inaction. Also, higher susceptibility to develop nutrition-related disease can induce feelings of fatalism, thus decreasing motivation to change.

Further research has to be performed to gain more insight on how people will include information on genetic make-up in the process of behaviour change and whether it will either enhance or decrease motivation.

Abstract: ‘Personalised nutrition communication: personal relevance & uncertainties’ (CSG/CESAGEN CONGRESS 2006). Laura I Bouwman, MSc and Dr. Maria A Koelen, Department of Communication Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.