| Popis: |
Nutritional labelling aims to promote informed food choices. This includes labels providing information about the nutrients and health-related qualities of a product. Little is known about their impact on product perceptions. Interestingly, despite of the lack of data, such claims are subject to heavy regulation in the European Union. Studies on the impact of nutrition and health labelling are hence urgently needed. This study thus investigated the impact of the “no added sugar” label on perceived healthiness and estimated sugar content. In this online experiment, 469 participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, viewing either products with the or without the “no added sugar” label. Eleven products from various categories were presented to the participants which rated them according to healthiness and estimated their sugar content. Nutrition knowledge and their responsibility for grocery shopping for others were considered. Independent samples t-tests revealed small and mostly non-significant differences between conditions for both perceived healthiness and estimated sugar content. No influence on the impact of the label by nutrition knowledge and responsibility for grocery shopping were found. “No added sugar” labels seem to only have very small effects on consumers’ product perceptions, suggesting that they might play a minor role in guiding food choices. Furthermore, their effectiveness is largely unaffected by consumers’ nutritional knowledge or their shopping responsibility for others. This study is hence a first indication that some regulation of sugar claims, at least when it comes to buying decisions, is not justified. |
