AUTHOR=Moradi Saleh , Hort Joanne 

TITLE=Well-being Messaging for Mammalian Milks: A Scoping Review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.688739

DOI=10.3389/fnut.2021.688739

ISSN=2296-861X

ABSTRACT=<p>Having a holistic understanding of research on well-being messaging for milk is vital to allow the optimal communication of the association between milk consumption and various nutritional, physical, and psychological benefits to the consumer. This work is a unique interdisciplinary, scoping review of existing research on well-being messaging for milk. Well-being messages are ways to communicate the broad well-being benefits of specific products to the consumer through information on food content or statements that link a product with favourable components, functions, or well-being outcomes. Leveraging this broad definition, and by proposing a guiding theoretical model that considers well-being messaging as a form of communication, milk well-being messaging literature has been mapped across time, geographical locations, disciplines, and product types. Two hundred forty-six were records included in this review, of which 177 were empirical studies. Studies were disseminated between 1954 and 2019, with 54.9% published after 2011. Food, Agriculture, and Biological Sciences (<italic>N</italic> = 109), Nutrition and Dietetics (<italic>N</italic> = 78), and Medicine, Public Health, and Health Professions (<italic>N</italic> = 69) disciplines have attracted the most publications, with numbers generally increasing in most recent years. The majority of included non-empirical records (69.6%) provide lists of commercially available products carrying well-being messaging and/or regulations on the use of particular well-being messages for milk according to various legislative authorities. Most of the empirical studies were conducted in North America (<italic>N</italic> = 71), West Europe (<italic>N</italic> = 52), and Oceania (<italic>N</italic> = 22), and on plain (i.e., unflavoured) milk (<italic>N</italic> = 152). Whereas, most studied elements of well-being messaging for milk across time, i.e., <italic>message</italic> (<italic>N</italic> = 169), <italic>product</italic> (<italic>N</italic> = 141), <italic>receiver</italic> (<italic>N</italic> = 101), and <italic>context</italic> (<italic>N</italic> = 72) have seen an increasing number of studies in recent years; <italic>sender</italic> (<italic>N</italic> = 51) and <italic>medium</italic> (<italic>N</italic> = 27) have been even less studied in the past four years. A more detailed analysis of research trends in each element of well-being messaging is reported. The research highlights immediate and strategic knowledge gaps that need further attention from researchers and/or policymakers in order to improve the “messaging” of well-being benefits of milk consumption to the consumer.</p>