Research by Gatton's Maura Scott in Women's Health

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 23, 2011) − Beware of junk food that is labeled as "health food."

That's the message coming out of research by University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics Assistant Professor of Marketing Maura Scott, which is cited in a recent issue of Women's Health (Sept. 2011) magazine.

By simply labeling foods with healthy-sounding names, manufacturers can get people to eat more, regardless of how nutritious (or not) the snack may be.

Scott served as lead author of a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, which found that people, particularly those with a history of dieting, tended to consume more when a food had a description such as "fruit chews" than when the identical nosh was called "candy chews."  And snack-size packaging — which supposedly was introduced to help us manage our eating — may only make matters worse. Another study found that dieters inhaled significantly more calories from mini packs of cookies than from standard-size ones.

"When you finish one bag and still aren't satisfied (the portions are really small, after all), you dig in to another — and then another, " said Scott.

So, before you reach for that next packaged snack, read the label carefully and be aware of just what you are getting.

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