Although wellness may represent a status symbol in some contexts, recent studies have pointed that healthy food remains largely associated with a negative social image (Stead, McDermott, MacKintosh, & Adamson, 2011). This negative perception may very well represent a hindering factor to the adoption of healthy food by a large number of people and contribute to the health and economic problems associated with high BMI. This paper investigates whether the social status of healthy food can be improved. Manipulating the number of followers on a social media account, we study how this social validation cue can stimulate consumers to eat more healthily. Furthermore, we explore the mechanism that may lead to positive consumer responses towards the message and the healthy food. A between-subject experiment on 290 individuals aged between 17 and 65 shows that the process relies on social influence driven by the influence of presumed influence (i.e., an individual’s perception that a message strongly influences others and consequently impacts his/her own reactions to the message (Noguti, & Russell, 2014)). Implications for the promotion of well-being behaviors are discussed.

• Karine Charry(LouRIM, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium)
• Tina Tessitore(LEM-CNRS, Iéseg, France)