Taste and Health Information on Fast Food Menus to Encourage Young Adults to Choose Healthy Food Products: An Experimental Study.

Frans Folkvord,Maud van der Zanden,Sara Pabian

doi:10.3390/ijerph17197139

Abstract

Currently, a great number of people have an unhealthy dietary intake, leading to chronic diseases. Despite the high prevalence of obesity and people being overweight, only a few strategies to promote healthier food products have been proven effective. Therefore, the objective of this study was to test the effect of the presence of health information and its integration into a fast food menu context on young adults’ healthy food choices. An experimental between-subjects design consisting of three conditions—subtle, explicit, and no health information—was conducted among 142 participants aged 18 to 24 (Mage: 21.49, SD = 1.77). The results showed that when health information about healthy products was provided, the level of integration of the information into the menu context had an effect. More specifically, participants exposed to explicit health information about healthy products provided on the fast food menu were more likely to choose a healthy food product compared to participants exposed to subtle integrated health information. No interaction effect for moderating factors was found. In line with the healthy food promotion model, the findings suggest that the provision of explicit health information on healthy products stimulates healthy food choices in a fast food environment.

Highlights

Worldwide many young adults are overweight or obese [1,2]
When the subtle health information condition was taken as reference category, the results showed that there was a significant difference between the probability of choosing a healthy food product for young adults in the explicit health information condition and the probability in the subtle health information condition (β = 1.30, 95% CI [1.16, 11.57], Wald χ2 = 4.90, p = 0.027)
The results presented above show that hypothesis 1, which states that young adults are more likely to choose a healthy food product when they are exposed to a menu with health information about the healthy food product than when they are exposed to a menu without health information about the healthy food product, cannot be supported

Summary

Introduction

Worldwide many young adults are overweight or obese [1,2]. Most young adults have little knowledge of the nutrients they consume in daily life and find it hard to distinguish healthy from unhealthy food products [12,13,14]. They develop eating habits that differ from patterns that are recommended for meeting national dietary reference intakes [15,16,17]. Since eating fast food is a popular lifestyle activity among young adults due to the low prices and convenience they

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion