In-store consumer nutrition education utilizing student educators

Abstract

In-store nutrition education has the potential to be one of the most powerful interventions available in community-based health-promotion (1, p.228). Supermarkets are a logical place to provide nutrition education; a recent survey shows that 97% of American families shop in a supermarket at least once every two weeks (2). Another recent national survey (3) indicated that 36% of the grocery chains contacted were already using some form of in-store nutrition education. Although an estimated 50% of purchase decisions are made at the time of purchase (4), the effectiveness of point-of-purchase nutrition information as a stimulus to changing food buying behavior remains unclear. While point-of-purchase campaigns are used successfully to advertise many consumer products, the results of nutrition education campaigns have been mixed in their effectiveness in promoting a change in knowledge, attitudes or food purchase behavior. Because of methodological difficulties and the complexity of intervening variables that drive food purchase behavior, the efficacy and cost to benefit ratio of nutrition education campaigns have been difficult to establish. Some researchers have demonstrated changes in knowledge or purchase behavior resulting from a variety of mass media and point-of-purchase nutrition information campaigns (5-7). Others have had less encouraging results, finding that the changes were either insignificant or short term (4,8,9). Not surprisingly, behavior change seems to be more resistant than knowledge or attitudes to the influence of in-store nutrition education (4,8,10). Some of the problems identified regarding the efficacy of supermarket nutrition education programs include: lack of use of consistent nutrition information from store to store, lack of defined criteria for materials, and lack of resources to do an adequate job with the project (3). In addition, limited consumer exposure and the difficulty of gaining consumer attention have been suggested as reasons why in-store nutrition education has not been consistent in demonstrating change (11,12). Point-of-purchase nutrition education materials compete for attention with multi-million dollar food product advertising in a cluttered supermarket environment, making