Your Fries are Less Fattening than Mine: How Food Sharing Biases Fattening Judgments Without Biasing Caloric Estimates

Abstract

Food sharing has become quite popular over the last decade, with companies offering food options specifically designed to be shared. As the popularity has grown, so too has concerns over the potential negative impact on consumer health. Despite companies’ explicit claims to the contrary, critics maintain that food sharing may be encouraging excessive caloric intake. The current article provides the first systematic exploration of why this may be happening. Three main and two supplementary studies suggest that food sharing reduces perceived ownership, which, in turn, leads people to mentally decouple calories from their consequence. Thus, sharing can reduce the perceived fattening potential of a consumption episode without biasing caloric estimates. This phenomenon persists even when explicit caloric information is provided, and it applies to both healthy and unhealthy foods. Importantly, we establish a relevant downstream consequence by illustrating that people tend to subsequently select calorie-dense foods after underestimating the fattening potential of a shared consumption episode. A roadmap for future research and practical implications are discussed.