Conflicting Goals: Calorie Attentiveness and Consumer Food Bundle Choice

Policymakers globally are interested in interventions that address the obesity epidemic. The restaurant industry, however, continues to promote less healthy, discounted food bundles. In this research, we investigate the interplay of food bundle pricing and calorie attentiveness and the resultant goals conflict (i.e., saving money vs eating healthy). We further investigate the potential to resolve this conflict by the type of meal bundle offered (low-calorie bundle vs high-calorie bundle) and determine the efficacy of self-regulatory orientations in resisting the financial incentives of meal deals. We conducted three online experiments using meal bundles in cinema (N = 399), fast food (N = 295) and grocery store (N = 148) contexts. Results reveal that calorie attentive consumers with a prevention focus regulatory orientation are less likely to find the bundle discount attractive and more likely to forgo meal deals. However, this effect was attenuated when low-calorie bundles were offered.