Using Health Conditions for Laughs and Health Policy Support: The Case of Food Allergies

Health conditions are sometimes included in entertainment media comedies as a context for and as a source of humor. Food allergies are a typical case in point: They are potentially life-threatening yet may be used in humorous contexts. We conducted a content analysis of food allergies in entertainme...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHealth communication Vol. 32; no. 7; pp. 803 - 811
Main Authors Abo, Melissa M., Slater, Michael D., Jain, Parul
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Routledge 03.07.2017
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Subjects
Adaptation, Psychological
Allergies
Cognitive ability
Cognitive dissonance
Conditions
Consumer Health Information
Content analysis
Entertainment
Food
Food allergies
Food hypersensitivity
Food Hypersensitivity - psychology
Food sources
Health care policy
Health Policy
Health risks
Healthy food
Humans
Humor
Laughter - psychology
Life threatening
Mass Media - statistics & numerical data
Motion pictures
Peanuts
Public health
Seriousness
Television
Threatening
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Summary:Health conditions are sometimes included in entertainment media comedies as a context for and as a source of humor. Food allergies are a typical case in point: They are potentially life-threatening yet may be used in humorous contexts. We conducted a content analysis of food allergies in entertainment media and tested the effects of humorous portrayals from an exemplar entertainment program. The content analysis confirmed that when food allergies were portrayed in television and the movies, it was most frequently in a humorous context and often contained inaccurate information. A follow-up experiment showed viewing a humorous portrayal of food allergies had an indirect negative effect on related health policy support via decreased perceived seriousness of food allergies. Inclusion of an educational video eliminated this effect on reduced policy support, with cognitive dissonance as a mediator. Findings support the hypothesis that portraying a health condition in a humorous context may reduce perceptions of seriousness and willingness to support public health policies to address risks associated with the condition, supporting and extending prior research findings.
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ISSN:1041-0236
1532-7027
DOI:10.1080/10410236.2016.1172292