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Heuristics in the supermarket: Do food labels support healthy choices?

Year:
2014
Duration:
6 months
Approved budget:
$109,940.41
Researchers:
Dr Ninya Maubach
Health issue:
Nutrition
Proposal type:
Emerging Researcher First Grant
Lay summary
Rates of obesity and diet-related preventable diseases, including cancers and type 2 diabetes, are rising and require urgent attention. Although improving the healthiness of people's diets is paramount, only a minority of consumers read objective nutrition facts panels, and research suggests shoppers are being misled by nutrition-related information elsewhere on food labels. Conflicting empirical results and unclear evidence of how labels influence behaviour have confounded regulatory progress, leaving a serious public health debate unresolved. The proposed mixed-methods studies will provide the first insights into how consumers routinely use packaging information. Mobile eye-tracking technology will capture consumers' use of food labels in purchase decisions, which will be probed using in-depth interviews. These results will enable development and testing of alternative front-of-pack nutrition labels using innovative experimental research methods that overcome prior studies' limitations, and will provide the basis for food labelling that is currently failing to promote healthy choices.