The Marketing Practices of the Ultra-processed Food Market: The Material and Discursive Arrangements and Consumer Perceptions
Abstract
The article explores how marketing practices impact the consumption of ultra-processed foods, highlighting material (packaging, advertising) and discursive (messages of healthiness and convenience) arrangements. Adopting the theory of Constructivist Market Studies, the research used interviews with consumers, health researchers and industry professionals to identify consumers' perceptions of these foods. The results indicate that marketing attributes emotional meanings to products, such as pleasure, relaxation and reward, influencing food choices. Strategies such as appeals to practicality and associations with positive feelings shape consumption habits, often to the detriment of nutritional quality. In addition, partial nutritional information and promotional practices reinforce consumers' cognitive and systemic vulnerabilities. The study concludes that by exploiting sensations and feelings, marketing practices increase consumption of ultra-processed foods, contributing to public health problems such as obesity. Greater regulation and nutritional education are suggested to mitigate these effects. This paper contributes to the debate on the role of marketing in shaping markets and its social and health implications.
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