Abstract
The rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases has brought attention to the importance of consuming a healthy diet. One strategy to improve diet quality is through front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labels. Taking advantage of an online grocery store, we allowed consumers to choose the FOP labels they preferred, and combined this information with real-time feedback on the overall nutritional quality of the shopping basket. We hypothesized that these dynamic food labels with real-time feedback (DFLF) would improve nutritional quality of food purchases. This trial followed a two-arm (no-label control and DFLF) crossover design with 125 participants exposed to each condition once in random order via an online grocery store. A first difference regression model allowed for estimating the unbiased effect of the DFLF on diet quality, measured by the weighted average Nutri-Score (ranging 1 to 5) per serving (primary) and changes in select nutrients and calories. The mean weighted Nutri-Score was 0.4 (12.6%) higher in the DFLF arm (CI: [0.2, 0.6]) relative to the control. The DFLF also decreased the amount of sugar per serving by 0.9 g (CI: [−1.7, −0.0]) and total sugar per shop by 169.5 g (CI: [−284.5, −54.5]). The DFLF features significantly improved nutrition quality relative to no labelling, as measured by average Nutri-Score values. These results shed light on the considerable potential of the online shopping environment to improve diet quality through customization and real time feedback.
Highlights
The global obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) epidemics have brought attention to the importance of consuming a healthy diet
Many are unaware of the nutritional quality of foods purchased, even when this information is available on the nutrition facts panel (NFP) on the back of the products [9,10,11]
Among the nutrient-specific measures, we found that the dynamic food labels with real-time feedback (DFLF) significantly decreased the amount of sugar per serving by 0.85 g (CI: [−1.70, −0.00]) and total sugar per shop by 169.53 g (CI: [−284.53, −54.53]) relative to the control
Summary
The global obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) epidemics have brought attention to the importance of consuming a healthy diet. Despite the well-established link between diet quality and health, consumers often fail to make healthier food choices at the point of purchase. Many are unaware of the nutritional quality of foods purchased, even when this information is available on the nutrition facts panel (NFP) on the back of the products [9,10,11]. This is because the NFP is not salient and the many dimensions make it difficult to understand for the average consumer [12,13,14,15]. It is often ignored [16]
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