Consumers' Search and Use of Nutrition Information: The Challenge and Promise of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act

Abstract

Four studies investigate the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act's (NLEA's) impact on how consumers use nutrition information. Field and laboratory studies compare, but do not detect any changes in, consumers' search for nutrition information or their recall of this information in the pre-and post-NLEA periods. However, the search activities of a select group (highly motivated and less knowledgeable consumers) benefited more from the NLEA than did other groups. Additional results from the field and lab studies indicate that the NLEA changed attention to negative nutrition attributes (such as fat and sodium, of which less is better) more than it changed attention to positive attributes such as calcium and vitamins. Analyses of scanner databases confirm this trend (with the exception of calories). Focus group results also reflect these findings. The authors discuss implications for public policy, management, academic research, and consumer welfare.

Modeling Expert Opinions on Food Healthfulness: A Nutrition Metric

“…Regulatory efforts to improve nutritional labeling, such as the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), have had relatively limited impact in altering the behavior of individuals who were not already motivated to eat more healthily 6,7 . The complexity of processing nutritional information serves to limit the influence of point-ofpurchase labeling 8 , especially in fast-food settings 9 or when many options are available 10 .…”

“…It may be especially difficult for consumers to interpret a food's contribution to overall diet 11 and to take into consideration the presence of favorable nutrients, given consumers' established tendency to focus disproportionately on avoiding negative components 6,[12][13] .…”

Quantitative information processing of nutrition facts panels

“…The present study presents a model, outlined in Figure 1, linking preferences, use of food label information, and comprehension to explore quantitative information processing among younger and older adults. The framework is similar to past models in which use of information and search intensity are important factors of nutrition-related behaviour (Balasubramanian and Cole, 2002;Grunert and Wills, 2007). However, the present model further specifies the role of attention as representing a form of information use and the motivational role of preferences in directing attention to particular types of information.…”

“…Associations with nutrition knowledge and NFP numeracy Knowledge has also been shown to be related to food label comprehension across a range of adult ages (Grunert et al, 2010;Misra, 2007;Cowburn and Stockley, 2004;Balasubramanian and Cole, 2002). Li et al (2000) found that knowledge was associated with preferences for %DVs as well as more effective use of %DVs.…”

“…Eye tracking methodology has been used in several studies to examine how consumers process information on food labels (Graham and Jeffery, 2011;van Herpen and van Trijp, 2011;Visschers et al, 2010;Bialkova and van Trijp, 2011;Jones and Richardson, 2007;Goldberg et al, 1999). Finally, nutrition knowledge and numeracy, two abilities that are important for NFP comprehension (Grunert and Wills, 2007;Rothman et al, 2006;Balasubramanian and Cole, 2002), were also examined to determine if they could predict healthfulness accuracy over and above age, preferences, and attention to quantitative information. Preferences and use of quantitative information on NFPs Food labels on packaged foods often contain weight and reference values to provide consumers with an informative assessment of nutritional attributes of foods (Campos et al, 2011).…”