Change for Health: A Downstream Social Marketing Intervention to Reduce Fast Foods Consumption among Students

One of the health problems is the increasing tendency towards fast foods consumption. Evidence also indicates rapid changes in the structure of consumption and prevalence of obesity in developing countries. Social marketing, as a behavior change framework, has shown its effectiveness in improving society, especially reducing consumerism. Aiming at reducing fast food consumption among students, this study was designed and implemented a social marketing campaign.

A pre- and post-test study with a control group was conducted on 352 middle school students in Yasuj City, Iran, in the period from October 2018 to January 2019, using a two-stage simple random sampling method. The campaign was designed and implemented based on a ten-steps model. A formative research also has been used to design the intervention mix.

A significant decrease in two behavioural variables of the amount of consumption and its trend was observed after campaign in the intervention group compared to the control group (P < 0.05) and compared to the values of these variables before the campaign (P < 0.01). Other campaign evaluation indicators such as campaign awareness with 81.1%, message recall with 79.4%, weekly food plans with 60%, the ability to calculate body mass index (BMI) with 67.7%, and monthly spending limit with 38.9% indicated the success of the campaign.

Utilizing a social marketing approach as well as appropriate intervention mix, based on a mix-method research, this study can be used as an effective pattern to reduce fast food consumption among students.