Although high-calorie foods are constantly available in contemporary environments, the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis suggests that people overconsume because their behaviour is optimized for the ancestral environment (e.g., McNamara et al. Reference McNamara, Houston and Higginson2015; Nesse & Williams Reference Nesse and Williams1995; Prentice & Jebb Reference Prentice and Jebb1995). Consumers can satisfy their immediate needs by making choices between different foods. Considering this might help explain why it is that health prevention messages are often focused on the long-term consequences of those choices. However, the recently developed insurance hypothesis by Nettle et al. leads to the suggestion that, even in contemporary environments, obese individuals may be living under the cloud of food insecurity. Although this hypothesis is certainly not the only explanation for the distribution of obesity in the population, it does at least provide a new perspective for understanding food behaviour with a view to changing health communication.

Nettle et al. start by discussing the shortcomings of the literature, which suggests that “people who are obese or eat unhealthily place a high motivational value on getting food soon” (target article sect. 2, para. 4; e.g., Guerrieri et al. Reference Guerrieri, Stanczyk, Nederkoorn and Jansen2012; Nederkoorn et al. Reference Nederkoorn, Braet, Van Eijs, Tanghe and Jansen2006; Weller et al. Reference Weller, Cook III, Avsar and Cox2008). According to the authors, this literature fails to describe the process(es) that lead(s) people to place a high motivational value on immediate consumption. According to Nettle et al., a plausible explanation for this is that obese people living under food insecurity would like to acquire food as soon as it becomes available. The insurance hypothesis might also help explain why it is that obese people are more sensitive to the expected pleasure of high-calorie food consumption (Pursey et al. Reference Pursey, Stanwell, Callister, Brain, Collins and Burrows2014; for a review, see Spence et al. Reference Spence, Okajima, Cheok, Petit and Michel2016). Indeed, the expected pleasure is generally associated with the likely inflow of nutrients that is higher for high-calorie foods (de Graaf Reference de Graaf2012; Herman & Polivy Reference Herman and Polivy1983; Redden & Haws Reference Redden and Haws2013). Thus, the unhealthy=tasty intuition (UTI), which might lead people to make unhealthy food choices and which could in turn affect their body mass index (BMI), could actually be attributable to the lack of nutritive expectations associated with healthy food consumption (Mai & Hoffmann Reference Mai and Hoffmann2015; Raghunathan et al. Reference Raghunathan, Naylor and Hoyer2006). The UTI was initially tested on U.S.-American participants (Raghunathan et al. Reference Raghunathan, Naylor and Hoyer2006). Interestingly, however, Werle et al. (Reference Werle, Trendel and Ardito2013) subsequently found that the French had a healthy=tasty intuition, due perhaps to their less utilitarian approach to eating (e.g., as compared to U.S.-Americans, see Rozin et al. Reference Rozin, Fischler, Imada, Sarubin and Wrzesniewski1999).

The nutritional aspect of consumption appears important for those individuals suffering from obesity. This interest can be justified by uncertainty in terms of acquiring nutritionally adequate foods in the future, as suggested by the insurance hypothesis. However, as pointed out by Block et al. (Reference Block, Grier, Childers, Davis, Ebert, Kumanyika, Laczniak, Machin, Motley, Peracchio, Pettigrew, Scott and van Ginkel Bieshaar2011, p. 7): “No one sits down to eat a plate of nutrients.” Thus, promoting the sensory pleasure (rather than nutritional quality) of eating healthy food might constitute a better way in which to reduce both food insecurity and the overconsumption of high-calorie foods (Petit et al. Reference Petit, Merunka, Anton, Nazarian, Spence, Cheok, Raccah and Oullier2016b). This strategy would also be in keeping with an embodied vision of self-regulation, according to which “being more conscious of one's bodily states (and their simulation) in response to appetitive stimuli may be beneficial to pursuing healthy goals” (Petit et al. Reference Petit, Basso, Merunka, Spence, Cheok and Oullier2016a, p. 612). For instance, consumers should reduce their food intake when they feel a decline in enjoyment during consumption, signaling them that they will soon be full (de Graaf Reference de Graaf2012; Herman & Polivy Reference Herman and Polivy1983; Redden & Haws Reference Redden and Haws2013). Focusing their intention on the multisensory experiences (e.g., on the smell, taste, and mouthfeel of the food) while eating would inform the consumer's brain of the likely inflow of nutrients, thus reducing both their food insecurity and their consumption (de Graaf Reference de Graaf2012; Ramaekers et al. Reference Ramaekers, Luning, Ruijschop, Lakemond, Bult, Gort and van Boekel2014). By contrast, when consumers are more focused on health goals than on their physical sensations, they would be likely to underestimate the caloric content (Petit et al. Reference Petit, Basso, Merunka, Spence, Cheok and Oullier2016a). For instance, they are more sensitive to the health halo of fast-food restaurant health claims, leading to overconsumption to compensate for the underestimated nutritional intake (Chandon & Wansink Reference Chandon and Wansink2007; Chernev & Gal Reference Chernev and Gal2010).

The insurance hypothesis can also help explain why it is that those individuals with a higher (vs. lower) BMI are better able to make healthy food choices and exhibit more activity in those brain areas that are associated with gustatory inference (insula), reward value (orbitofrontal cortex), and self-control (inferior frontal gyrus) when they are focused on the pleasure of eating (vs. on health benefits; see Petit et al. Reference Petit, Merunka, Anton, Nazarian, Spence, Cheok, Raccah and Oullier2016b). Indeed, Petit et al. explained their results by suggesting that people with a higher BMI are no less able to control themselves while making healthy food choices than those with a lower BMI but simply need a different valuation of those choices. By highlighting the pleasure (and thus nutrients) of eating healthy foods, public authorities and organizations in charge of promoting healthy lifestyles may be able to reduce food insecurity, and hence make healthy food choices more acceptable.

Recently, Petit et al. (Reference Petit, Spence, Velasco, Woods and Cheok2017) demonstrated that encouraging people to imagine the sensory experiences of eating a portion of food increases both the expected pleasure and the calorie estimation of smaller food portions, thus leading to a significant reduction of the portion size effect (i.e., generally, people tend to eat more when they are served a larger than a smaller portion of food). The fact that the calorie content of food portions is often underestimated helps explain why it is that people with food insecurity would be likely to select larger food portions and thus overeat (Wansink & Chandon Reference Wansink and Chandon2006). Therefore, promoting the simulation of pleasant eating experiences would likely reduce the food insecurity highlighted by Nettle et al. by showing consumers that smaller food portions will satisfy their nutritional needs (Cornil & Chandon Reference Cornil and Chandon2016; Petit et al. Reference Petit, Spence, Velasco, Woods and Cheok2017).