Letters from the Health Psychology Group #2 – Another Taste of FOOD-FRAMES!

Website Announcement

To all those that are interested in what is going on with FoodFrames outside of our team in Vienna—we have news for you! The FOOD-FRAMES website is now officially live!

Check out the website for an in-depth overview of the project, the full team and what is to come in the coming years. Thanks to the news tab, you can make sure you are the first to hear any important announcements. It’s also worth keeping an eye on the research outputs tab over the next few months as work is well underway on several projects and publications may start appearing around the start of next year.

While our newsletter will make sure you’re up-to-date with all the important happenings in Vienna, we highly recommend you keep an eye on the website for the latest consortium-wide news.

Meet Anna and Naz

A new team member, Anna Kulesza, has also recently joined the Food Frames Project. Anna is a Master’s Student in Psychology at the University of Vienna and a student assistant at the Health Psychology Lab under Prof. Laura König. She has previously worked with the Health Psychology Lab for the organisation of the SAA 2026 Conference in August of this year. Anna is very much looking forward to being part of such a large-scale project and contributing to its work in any way she can.

In addition, we are currently being supported by Nezihe Naz Moraligil as well. Naz completed her bachelor’s degree in Psychology in Türkiye and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Cognitive Science at the University of Vienna. In addition to her previous internship experience, she is currently contributing to a project within the Health Psychology Group on the use of social media data donation as part of her project course.

Why Food Misinformation Research Matters

Most of us are no stranger to social media content on food, be it recipes, restaurant vlogs and nutrition tips. While many people enjoy this content, these videos contain claims about nutrition that turn out to be more myth than fact. Low-quality content containing false or misleading information is widespread, and recent analyses suggest that they are shared at a disproportionately higher rate than high-quality information (Altay, 2026). But why does this matter?

While we like to think that we are good at recognising misinformation, in reality, our discrimination ability leaves a lot to be desired. A recent meta-analysis found that people correctly identify news as true or false only about 68% of the time, with similar accuracy for genuine and false headlines (Sultan et al., 2024). We also have cognitive biases that can make it harder for us to recognize misinformation. For instance, repeated exposure to information increases belief in the claim regardless of its veracity (Ye et al., 2026), meaning that repetition can encourage misconceptions.

Unfortunately, the impact of misinformation goes beyond possessing misconceptions. Misinformation affects decision-making on a micro- and macro-level (Alvarez-Galvez et al., 2025; Čechmánek, 2024). On the micro-level, health misinformation can negatively impact the intention to perform health behaviours, alter individuals’ risk perception and lead to reduced trust in the government, health institutions and science (Alvarez-Galvez et al., 2025). In the food domain specifically, it can be tied with misguided dietary decisions, such as unnecessarily restricted diets which can be associated with excessive intakes of some nutrients and deficiencies of others (Capocasa et al., 2026). On a macro-level, health misinformation can counteract public health efforts (Alvarez-Galvez et al., 2025). Importantly, policymakers are affected by the same biases, meaning that their misconceptions can lead to misguided regulations and misallocated resources.

In the face of these risks, it is central to mitigate the spread of misinformation. Through our research, we hope to better understand the dynamics of nutritional misinformation and develop evidence-based recommendations for policy-level actions to prevent its circulation. That way consumers can be supported in making informed purchase decisions in a food information environment less affected by misleading information.

Sources

Altay, S. (2026). Rare on screens but on everyone’s mind: A systematic review of misinformation prevalence, exposure, and concentration. PsyArXiv. doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/sgvr8_v1 

Alvarez-Galvez, J., Carretero-Bravo, J., Lagares-Franco, C., Ramos-Fiol, B., & Ortega-Martin, E. (2025). Development of a conceptual framework of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Systematic review of reviews. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 11, e62693. doi.org/10.2196/62693 

Capocasa, M., Venier, D., Venier, B., & Chiarla, C. (2026). Exploring nutritional myths and fake news: Impact and counteractions. Clinical Nutrition ESPEN, 72, 102947. doi.org/10.1016/j.clnesp.2026.102947 

Čechmánek, K. (2024). Disinformation, misinformation and the agri-food sector. EU Agrarian Law, 13(1), 21–27. doi.org/10.2478/eual-2024-0003 

Sultan, M., Tump, A. N., Ehmann, N., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Hertwig, R., Gollwitzer, A., & Kurvers, R. H. J. M. (2024). Susceptibility to online misinformation: A systematic meta-analysis of demographic and psychological factors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(47), e2409329121. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409329121 

Ye, S., Attali, D., Ghazi, M., Cachia, A., Cassotti, M., & Borst, G. (2026). Systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence for an illusory truth effect and its determinants. Nature Communications, 17(1), 3270. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70041-x 