The effects of nutrition label format on healthier dietary choices: a forced choice eye-tracking study

Abstract

Background: Mandatory nutritional labelling is designed to encourage healthier dietary choices. However, the current label is frequently misunderstood, leading individuals to choose less healthy options. This research examined whether hybrid labels, which combine text values and traffic light colours, could improve attention paid to the nutritional information and the correct selection of healthier dietary choices compared to the current mandatory label. Methods: A paired stimuli, forced choice, eye-tracking study investigated nutrition label formats with 48 participants. Health literacy, BMI, age and dietary choice motivations were measured and controlled for within the analyses. Findings: There was a significant main effect of ‘format’ on healthier dietary choices (p=.046); post hoc analyses reported significantly lower correct selections of healthier dietary choices for colour-only vs. hybrid (p=.021) label formats. There was a significant main effect of ‘format’ on fixation count and fixation dwell time (p< .001). Post hoc analyses reported increased fixation counts and fixation dwell times for text-only vs. colour-only (p<.001), text-only vs. hybrid (p<.001) and hybrid vs. colour-only (p<.001) label formats. There was a significant main effect of ‘nutrient content’ on percentage fixation dwell times (p<.001), post hoc analyses reported increased attention to fat and sugar information across all trials. Discussion: The findings reported suggest that hybrid label formats are more effective than text-only label formats at increasing appropriately healthy dietary choices. This suggests that the mandatory nutrition labelling policy should be revisited to create a mandatory nutrition label that is optimal at improving and encouraging healthier dietary choices at population-level.