Healthy Eating as a Social Marketing Issue - Coursework Example

Healthy eating Name of Student Institutional affiliation Date Introduction Social marketing involves commercial marketing techniques that help in health boosting. Social marketing is operational on the population level, and those that provide health care take part in ensuring its effectiveness. On healthy eating, social marketing is widely used to address the health behavior. Using mass media, various strategies address the health care issue. Dissemination, promotion and the reaching of communities fall under the methods used in social marketing. The following case study aims at improving nutrition and healthy eating; it also summarizes the theories used in social marketing to ensure healthy eating among individuals. The case study also reviews evidence on nutrition-related marketing that inform the progress of social marketing approaches that upgrade the levels of healthy nutrition practices and the environment (Braithwaite 2009,p.101). A nutritious diet is crucial in ensuring health and well-being of a person. This prevents the person from contracting many chronic illnesses, for example in Australia, people who take poor diets and foods that are energy-dense report cases of obesity. In the case study, social marketing use will include techniques used to analyze, execute, plan and evaluate a plan that change the behavior of the audience in order to improve their healthy eating. Social marketing comes with the concepts that enable the audience to apply the information provided; the concepts includes consumer orientation, continuous follow-up, exchange theory, segmentation of the audience and marketing mix(Gregory 2002, p 40). In social marketing campaigns, a behavioral objective puts social marketers on the target of changing behavior not just educating or informing. In addition, the segmentation of the audience demands precise thoughts about the party aiming the efforts. Formative research assists in ensuring and comprehension of the target consumer and orientation of the campaign towards them. Coming up with an exchange requires consideration of what the target audience will give up in order to take the desired behavior. On the other hand, marketing mix puts social marketers to portray holistic answers that are attractive and useful, that will lead to both trying and repeating of the behavior by the audience. Competition ought to be included, as it creates awareness of the consumers competing forces, this is due to the level of appealing to the behaviors social marketers are trying to change (Braithwaite 2009, p.150). While social marketing techniques application successively brings effective change among different people, failures emerge where various people have differences in healthy eating goals. Various programs encourage healthy eating. It is important for the practitioners and the community under the research to comprehend the factors that lead to success and reduce failure (Gregory 2002, p 45). In the case study approach, behavior change was the main aim. Formative research carrying out and segmentation to select the group that will form part of the research is done. A traditional marketing mix application and a design aimed at the creation of appealing changes with the targeted audience. The competition faced by the appealing behavior was put into consideration and strategies were put in place to curb competition. Studies were then analyzed to measure the effects and intervention of the healthy eating habits. Of all the five studies carried out, two reported a behavior objectively, but one was to a specified target audience, another two showed evidence of exchange in the concepts and one reported evidence of competition consideration (French 2009, p73). The application of social marketing and its effectiveness in changing to a healthy eating behavior and analysis carried out to ensure insights into considerations that may lead to social marketing intervention achievement. Most studies showed appealing changes to healthy eating habits though some changes were small, mixed or did not follow a regular pattern. In the review of social marketing healthy eating intervention, nutrition plans aim at both children and adolescents. Social marketing has proven to be very effective in addressing the issue of healthy eating. Following the levels of obese people in the country, healthy eating remains a main concern for social marketers and health practitioners (French 2009, p80). Social marketing portrays the most sophisticated approach to public health matters, inclusive of nutrition interventions. As the aimed behavior, healthy eating habit is relatively intricate in comparison to the other social marketing aimed behaviors. According to social marketers, healthy eating behavior leads to more health to the person, this in turn leads to restoration of health, health maintenance, and improvements in health (McGinnis 2006, p 106). According to social marketers, healthy eating influences health in two ways, first, healthy eating and diet can prevent a person from various kinds of illnesses and unhealthy diet can lead to a person falling ill. Secondly, a healthy diet can assist in treating al illness once it has occurred for example by eating a balanced diet and a lot of fruits and vegetables. Although some social marketing principles such as marketing mix and segmentation are generic, other rules require great attention concerning a healthy eating behavior (McGinnis 2006, p 107). Firstly, the exchange rule is very important to changing the eating habits, from the economic point of view.The choice of healthy eating behavior involves trade-offs, whether explicit or implicit, in health status and other, more immediate worth items of change. In addition, the long-term outcome often means coming up with the risk concept. While with other social marketing activities, this issue is rather open. Similarly, competition is also one of the most crucial challenges for social marketers aimed at improving the healthy eating behavior. The serious competition that social marketers face is product substitutes and communication strategies. Changing eating habits requires changing eating behavior, this includes preparation of food, or the methods of cooking that are inherent to the food culture. The choice of food, it not necessarily determined by the nutritional or physiological requirements but also by cultural and social influences (Lawrence 2014, p 220). As indicated earlier, Social marketing relies on behavioral change theories. A number of theories apply to study the healthy eating behavior of individuals and social, environmental levels. Two theoretical approaches apply in the study of individual eating behavior, the health behavioral approach, and the social cognitive theory. Most of the psychology approaches are generic and not specifically made for studying healthy eating, the social cognitive perspective is the widest spread theory in the literature to the analysis of eating as a behavior (Lang 2004, p 56). Three types of socio-cognitive theories comprehend and analyzes individual nutrition behavior, Theories that assume attitudes for example the expectancy value that is the key to understanding the human behavior. Theories that take into consideration of attempts to implement a behavior show active behavior (Lang 2004, p 56).A more general cognitive advance to a healthy eating indicates an advance in interest in the health psychology approach that assist to comprehend and improve an individual behavioral change related to wellbeing of a person and his health. Some models aim at explaining and predicting changes in behavior. Intention models fall under this class of models; the models assume the behavior is intentional in its function, and the intention is due to a number of variables that are relevant. A step has been taken further by the intervention models, Intervention models imply that individuals who take into consideration change, pass through a series of stages and face certain problems in each of them (Lawrence 2014, p 225). Ecological models and the community models of intervention address the individual healthy eating behavior. Wide perceptions to comprehending health behavior have arisen and are being used in the healthy eating research. Conclusively, models in health psychology are applied to measure behavioral change taking into consideration risk perception and healthy eating are key to the change (Lang 2004, p 57). Social marketing is one of the mainly developed ideas for ensuring healthy eating habits. Many theoretical approaches are available for illustrating and predicting habitual change. Some values of social marketing, for instance, exchange and rivalry, however, generate additional shortcomings for social marketers. Some of the tribulations that social marketing face critics are also pertinent for healthy eating conduct (Frewer 2001, p 95). The efficiency of social marketing operations for healthy eating promotion has not been measurable. Having observed various diet involvements, the general impact of nutrition campaigns has not been quite impressive. Suggestions are that while social marketing has been additional successful in altering other behaviors. The basis why it does not always create positive effects for diet interventions can be fixed in the type of performance itself and in the reality that we do not openly comprehend healthy eating manners and its change course (Frewer 2001, p 98). Various shortcomings are highlighted as part of the poor implementation. Taking into consideration that social marketing as a regulation and practice that has been known for approximately forty years, it stays weakly understood and unsuccessfully functional by many on the ground of public health. To a few, social marketing is covered in mystique; and one that could be feared, if not collectively disdained. Additionally, regularly social marketing is comprehended only as a tool for designing advertising campaigns. This includes the promotion of healthy eating relatively than perceiving it as a complete, complicated framework for unbeaten involvement (Rootman 2006, p 36). Notwithstanding, the current hypothetical consensus on the value of audience segmentation in the endorsement of community health, some theoretical and practical recommendations, are as a planned technique in collective marketing campaigns. Most of the social marketing approaches are restricted to rather sparse segmentation techniques. In particular, public health practitioners focus on demographic sets that recount to ailment risk profiles but could not necessarily be most important or resourceful targets for behavior transformation (Rootman 2006, p 36). It is self-evident in intellectual research that involvements entrenched in theory and subjected to thorough tests are additionally efficient than theoretical interventions. It is the theory of change, which implies this common approach and gives a possibility to thrive. Shortfalls of social marketing plans are failures to theory or accomplishment. In application, nevertheless, cautiously measured theory-driven interventions are not so common. Secondly, even if a theory is measured, social marketers are inclined to be largely diverse and instinctive thinkers in their use of existing theory. Lastly, very few of the suppositions underpinning theories of behavior transform and planning representations empirically demonstrated (Pena 2000, p 124). The need of theory-driven involvements can be explained by the deficiency of theoretical study in social marketing. There is a necessity for a theoretical structure to comprehend how customers gain in the utilization course and how researchers can create them better as generators of their process. Social marketing aimed behaviors are so assorted that no solitary theory is likely to give all assistance needed for precise social change behavior. There are many approaches to deal with healthy eating behavior; though, they are of inadequate efficiency. For that motive, there is a need to survey other hypothetical frameworks to understanding transformation processes. And also standard wellbeing behavior models could be integrated with other speculative underpinnings that help to the enhanced explanation of a particular conduct (Scrinis 2013, p 179). The underlying hypothesis of this study is that social marketing is an important structure for the support of healthy eating behavior. Though, its efficiency has been controlled by some tribulations and gaps that are discussed in this study. The input is made by captivating some of the speculative, customer orientation issues and, partially, ethical and downstream approach tribulations that social marketing has been disapproved (Pena 2000, p 124).Additionally, social marketing practitioners should toughen their consumer direction and to employ discourse with consumers leading to a more successful conduct change ideas. Conducting more research to be acquainted with how particular consumers groups feel and act and more research to show if the chosen theoretical and practical principles are appropriate. Also they would advance the status of social marketing as a knowledge discipline and as a practice. In addition, such techniques as segmentation and targeting should be considered as very important in scheming societal change. More complicated segmentation representations should become a normal social marketer's tool rather than exclusion (Pena 2000, p 124). Additional concerns should also be put in place to deal with the ethical issues of social marketing and the downstream orientation. Growing transparency and connecting consumers in the decision-making procedure are some of the steps that policymakers ought to take. Moreover, social marketing practitioners should engage other actors, such as foodstuff companies, retailers; nutritionists to make further insights into how effectively sketch behavioral transformation. Eating is a frequently repetitive behavior that people do not pay attention to in their daily lives unless there is a particular motive for doing so. Eating is, moreover, a social action and is established with the practices of families, friends, workplaces, organizations, and communities. Eating conduct is mostly based on educational and cultural conventions and acquired affective responses to foods that are satisfying as such. Therefore, wellbeing as a cause for changing behavior must contend with these other influences. 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