How many reasons for obesity can you list without to much thinking? The sedentary way of life, saturated fats, chemically altered foodstuffs, greedy restaurateurs, lazy school officials, and the suburban sprawl – all of these have been named as major causes for the widespread obesity in the Western world.
A recent study on people’s purchase habits added a new culprit to these – credit cards. The authors of the study, which was published in the Journal of Consumer Research, carried out a series of tests and, after carefully examining the data, concluded that shoppers who paid with their credit cards tended to buy more junk food than those who bought with cash.
As the first task of the study, the authors, Professors Manoj Thomas, Kalpesh Kaushik Desai, and Satheeshkumar Seenivasan from Cornell and the State University of New York, tried to establish a connection between food purchases and the payment methods people used. For this purpose, the researchers collected real-life data from a chain store in the United States. They estimated that 41 per cent of the observed consumers bought with credit cards, 9 per cent used debit cards, and the rest paid with legal tender. The food products bought by the consumers were graded in terms of their healthiness and whether or not they were purchased impulsively. After the data was processed and analyzed, two major conclusions emerged: first, impulse purchases included junk foodstuffs much more often than healthy products; and, second, the people who used a credit card bought more often junk food than the people who paid with paper (Smart Money).
In the next stage of the study, the authors tried to determine what caused this behavior. They conducted a new test, but this time they concentrated on the emotions of the shoppers. The researchers discovered that cash shoppers found payment far more painful than consumers with credit cards. This emotional pain was the reason why people who paid with cash bought far less junk food on impulse. As the authors explain, when clients see vice products, such as cakes, cookies, and pies, desire associated with the emotive imagery triggers impulsive purchase decisions. The pain of having to pay can curb the impulsive response, thus reducing the number of such purchases.
It was further determined that when people paid with cash instead of plastic, payment seemed more real to them, and they made more rational choices. Customers tended to buy less junk food and chose more healthy products, rather than popcorn, Coke, cookies, and pre-packed food. After all, they used the money they’d been working for over long working days. When people relate personal effort to money, they tend to spend it in more rational ways. Richard Bialek, a marketing adviser and former credit card company executive, summarizes this disposition in the following way: when money is out of your wallet, you are physically seeing it go; however, with credit cards, purchase and payment happen at different times. So, cash buyers are more inclined to stick to the essentials. Credit card buyers just press their PIN number without thinking much of what they bought.
Remember that money spent on your credit card is real as well. And, if you feel the need to cut down on the junk food in your diet, you will do wisely if the next time you go out shopping, you pay with paper money instead of your credit card. In this way, you should be less tempted to buy vice food impulsively and will purchase more healthy products.
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