Categorizing health-related cues to action: using Yelp reviews of restaurants in Hawaii

Yelp, a social media site, undeniably has an influence on consumers' food choice in spite of its ability to reflect consumers' real voice being criticized. Since unhealthy food choices contribute to health problems, such as obesity and malnourishment, we attempted to examine these problems by better understanding consumers through health-related cues to action—a construct from the Health Belief Model (HBM)— on Yelp Honolulu's restaurant reviews. Our research revealed 13 main categories: Ingredient, Type of food, Taste, Lifestyle, Cooking, Option, Price, Portion, Well-being, Nutrition, Hygiene, Emotional attachment and indulgence, and Feeling. We argue that these categories may ultimately lead consumers to make healthier food choices. In search of the most appealing way to communicate with the target group, underlying concepts that derived from these categories can be tested. Marketers in food industry (or public health policy-makers) can craft their strategies for healthy food brands/products (or healthy eating scheme) based on the concept test research. Moreover, Yelp can apply these insights in the development of their algorithm and filter system in order to help consumers find healthy food if they wish to do so. Restaurants can also improve their strategy, menu, and communication execution to meet the growing demands of health conscious consumers.