--- title: Here's Why Salads Feel Feminine and Nachos Seem Manly description: A study shows that food is marketed to each gender with healthiness overtones because that's how we respond. canonical: https://time.com/4021781/food-marketing-gender/ author: Tanya Basu article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-11T15:30:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:56.204Z article:section: Health og:title: Here's Why Salads Feel Feminine and Nachos Seem Manly og:description: A new study finds that even food packaging is aligned with gender stereotypes og:url: https://time.com/4021781/food-marketing-gender/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe6e8a5b7cbc1004/698863113c16398fd0459aa4/food-marketing-package-gender-stereotype.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3196 og:image:height: 1798 og:image:alt: food marketing package gender stereotype og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's Why Salads Feel Feminine and Nachos Seem Manly twitter:description: A new study finds that even food packaging is aligned with gender stereotypes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe6e8a5b7cbc1004/698863113c16398fd0459aa4/food-marketing-package-gender-stereotype.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's Why Salads Feel Feminine and Nachos Seem Manly > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=adad7cde-be63-45b3-a059-66f23a8d0370&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Should I Eat Hot Dogs? [Watch (HLS stream): Should I Eat Hot Dogs?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uOVusUZu.m3u8) (2:06)  _Published 2015-08-05. Should I Eat Hot Dogs?_  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Sep 11, 2015 3:30 PM UTC  Our brains aren't sure what to make of these cupcakes. Our brains aren't sure what to make of these cupcakes. Kathryn Scott Osler / The Denver Post—MediaNews Group.  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Sep 11, 2015 3:30 PM UTC Any casual observer of food commercials knows that food is marketed differently to the sexes. In yogurt ads, women search through their empty fridges for a dessert replacement. In snack ads, dadbods laze on couches with chips, hot dogs and chili. These marketing ploys aren’t accidental; study after study has shown that sociocultural influences affect food choices between men and women. Now, a [new paper](http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2015-26765-001)—titled “Macho Nachos” and published in the journal _Social Psychology—_suggests that the gendered ways a food is packaged might even influence how people think it tastes. “There’s a cultural stereotype that women tend to eat more healthfully than men,” says lead researcher Luke Zhu, assistant professor in the department of business administration at the University of Manitoba in Canada. It all goes back to the idea of priming: how culture often imprints concepts in our minds. Eating a salad is “what society thinks women should do,” Zhu says, while having a hankering for a cheeseburger is masculine. **MORE**: [Kids See More Candy Ads On TV Now Than In The Past](http://time.com/4029230/kids-candy-advertisements/) In the first of a series of experiments, Zhu and his team asked 93 adults which foods they considered masculine and feminine: baked chicken versus fried chicken, baked potatoes versus French fries, light potato chips versus regular potato chips, and baked fish versus fried fish. The results showed, unsurprisingly, that there was a significant tie to food and gender perception. People were more likely to see the unhealthier options as masculine and the healthier options as more feminine. The study then took an Entenmann’s mini blueberry muffin packaged in either a feminine way, with the word “healthy” and an image of a ballerina; a masculine way, with the word “mega” and men playing football; or a gender-neutral way with no qualifiers and an image of a nondescript field. There was also a set of packages designed to confuse the muffin consumers: “healthy” packages with football players and “mega” packages with a ballerina. **MORE**: [How To Tell If Your Grass-Fed Beef Is Real](http://time.com/4015095/grass-fed-beef/) “With packaging, we expect healthy eating to be associated with femininity,” Zhu says. “But what if healthy food is packaged in masculine packaging? That’s an expectation violation.” It’s a similar idea to how organic food is often packaged compared to junk food, Zhu says. Organic health products will often feature a green scheme, plants, soothing graphics or recycled packaging; junk food will be bold, in crinkly packaging that features loud splashes of colors and words. Zhu and his team found that people don’t respond to mixed-up signals. Foods with mixed-gender marketing weren’t as popular in the test group, and people reported that the blueberry muffin didn’t taste as good, even though all of the muffins were identical. As immune as we think we are to gender cues on our food, these experiments suggest that the tactics food marketers use actually work. “For marketers, there’s a pretty clear implication that you want to frame the product consistently with the cultural, primed gender stereotype,” Zhu says. This packaging may even have public health implications: “We should try to cue femininity in packaging for healthy food,” he says. ## Transcript [00:02] Ballgame or no ballgame, hotdogs aren't hot in the health [00:05] world. According to 4 of our 5 experts. Hotdogs [00:11] deliver a nutritional assault in so many ways One typical [00:16] fast food dog with ketchup and mustard, contains 290 [00:20] calories, and 910 mg of sodium. The problem [00:24] with hot dogs, is how much they're processed. Hot dogs fall [00:27] into a category of process meats that have been [00:30] consistently associated with adverse health effects, [00:33] according to Dr. David Katz. Diet Heinz process meats [00:36] have been linked with cancer. Especially colorectal cancer. [00:41] Peter Clifton says that processed meats can also lead to [00:44] diabetes, higher mortality, and more cardiovascular [00:47] disease. The saturated fats, salt, and nitrates in processed [00:51] meats are likely culprits. Nitrates are the main concern with [00:55] cured meats like hotdogs, says Mariana Stern. Nitrates [00:59] are salts added from synthetic chemicals or natural [01:02] sources, such as celery juice, which you may find on the [01:06] labels of so called uncured or nitrate free hot dogs. [01:10] Regardless of where the nitrates come from, they can be [01:13] converted by oral bacteria into cancer causing agents, she [01:17] says. But Marianne Sodring notes that more research on [01:20] this topic is needed. As other factors might have to be [01:23] present for nitrate- processed meat to have a [01:25] cancer- causing effect. There might be an easier way to [01:28] lower the risks associated with hot dogs, according to [01:32] Denis Corpet. His study on rats showed that adding [01:35] calcium to diets high in hot dogs lowered the potential risk [01:39] for cancer. If you want to indulge in the occasional dog, [01:43] Sodring, the lone hot dog defender, has some parting [01:46] words of encouragement. As a bonus, from an [01:49] environmental standpoint, one might say that hot dogs [01:52] contribute. To sustainable food production because a much [01:56] larger part of the animal, not just the prime cuts, is utilized. 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