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How healthy is healthy?

Concordia marketing professor Darlene Walsh receives grant to examine health claims in the food industry.
September 28, 2011
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By Katie Malazdrewicz


Darlene Walsh’s research into health claims used to promote food and beverages just got a boost.

The assistant professor of marketing at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business (JMSB) is the recipient of a Transformative Consumer Research grant, awarded by the Association for Consumer Research (ACR).

The ACR refers to transformative consumer research as a movement within the association that seeks to encourage, support, and publicize research that benefits consumer welfare and quality of life for all people affected by consumption around the world.

Darlene Walsh, assistant professor of marketing | Photo by Concordia University
Darlene Walsh, assistant professor of marketing | Photo by Katie Malazdrewicz

Walsh’s research focuses specifically on the various health claims used to promote food and beverages, and how they relate to the increased rate of obesity in both children and adults.

“In short, if something is labelled as ‘low in fat’, or ‘healthy,’ I want to know how this impacts the consumer,” Walsh explains. “Will they consume that particular item more often or in larger quantities because they feel it is ‘healthy’?”

How these claims impact consumers’ lifestyles, and under what conditions these claims have a positive impact on society, is the focus of Walsh’s research.

“This grant has given me the means to carry out the first two case studies in this project,” says Walsh, who joined Concordia in 2007. She currently teaches the undergraduate advertising course at the JMSB.

While the projected timeline of the entire project is three to four years, receiving the grant now has given her the opportunity to begin her research, with the first study taking place this fall, and the second in winter 2012.

Walsh joins two other JMSB faculty members who have also been awarded this grant in the past. In 2008, Zeynep Arsel was awarded a Transformative Consumer Research grant for her project From Kindness of Strangers to Gambling for Used Lipsticks: A Typology of Lateral Recycling, while Hakkyun Kim received the grant in 2010 for his work I Don’t Smoke, so I Can Indulge in Risky Actions: An Illusory Boost in the Self’s Health Confidence After Exposure to Anti-Smoking Public Service Announcements.

Related links:
•    John Molson School of Business
•    Profile of Darlene Walsh 
•    Association for Consumer Research



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