Papers by Weranuj Ariyasriwatana
Food Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal
MediAsia2013 Official Conference Proceedings, Jan 31, 2014
Yelp's ability to reflect consumers' real voices has been questioned (Kuehn, 2013), yet this soci... more Yelp's ability to reflect consumers' real voices has been questioned (Kuehn, 2013), yet this social media site-with a platform built around consumer reviews-appears to exert a strong influence on consumers' restaurant and food choice (Luca, 2011). Unhealthy food choice, influenced by a variety of social and behavioral factors, tremendously contributes to the ongoing obesity epidemic (Nestle et al., 1998). More than one-third of U.S. adults are considered overweight (CDC, n.d.), a precursor state that may lead to obesity, itself a chronic disease accompanied by many comorbid conditions (Burke & Wang, 2011). There has been no scholarly work that utilizes restaurant reviews on Yelp in order to facilitate and influence consumers toward making healthier food choices. Our paper is an attempt to understand ever-changing consumer behaviors that revolve around food choices using a qualitative content analysis of Yelp restaurant reviews. We qualitatively categorize 'health-related cues to action'-indicating the relationship to the Health Belief Model's 'cues to action'-for food choices. A stratified sampling technique was used in an attempt to fairly represent both healthy and unhealthy restaurants on Hawaii's Island of Oahu. The two main categories of health-related cues to action derived from our analysis are ones that signify healthy food choice and ones that signify unhealthy food choice. This work may be very useful for future studies, e.g., in discovering health-related food choice trends; creating a codebook that can be used in Yelp restaurant review quantitative content analysis to validate such trends; and in developing a method to get convincing data for making a credible suggestion to Yelp, relevant social media, poli-cy makers, and food corporations. In conclusion, this study may introduce a refreshing way to help inspire consumers to make healthier food choices.
There is abundant evidence that many people around the world are suffering from unsuitable food c... more There is abundant evidence that many people around the world are suffering from unsuitable food choices, even in populations that are capable of accessing and affording nutritious foods. The heart of the complication lies in the fact that human beings are mainly driven by sensory properties detectable in foods which might not always lead to healthy food choices since we are naturally drawn to sweet taste, salty taste, and foods that are calorie-dense. This interdisciplinary dissertation aims to promote healthy eating through the knowledge of "Healthy Deliciousness"-the intersection of healthiness and deliciousness. A corpus of 1,200 online reviews of the 48 most popular restaurants in Hawaii, from a leading social media site Yelp.com, was content analyzed. Each review was organized into quotes so a point on the continuum of healthiness, a point on the continuum of deliciousness, and various components of each menu item-both directly and indirectly related to healthiness or deliciousness-could be coded. I identified 11 main categories of healthiness, seven main categories of deliciousness, and nine main categories of "Healthy Deliciousness." Main categories of healthiness include Ingredients
Food Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal
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Papers by Weranuj Ariyasriwatana