Nutritional information labels and health claims to promote healthy consumption

Abstract

Purpose Rates of diseases caused by poor diet have seen no reduction in recent years. In this scenario, nutritional information labels and health claims could play a decisive role in modifying product attitudes and purchase intention (consequently, eating habits). In this frame, the first objective is to analyze the role of three antecedents on attitudes toward nutritional labels and credibility from health claims. These three starting antecedents are as follows: psychological characteristics of the consumer associated with eating disorders, body image attitudes and affective reactions (pleasure and arousal). Second, this paper aims to analyze if both elements (attitudes toward nutritional labels and credibility from health claims) improve (or not) food product attitudes and then, its purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach The sample comprised 300 young people between 18 and 25 years old. They provided their opinion about a healthy product by completing a structured and personal questionnaire after inspecting the packaging. Path analysis with partial least squares (PLS) was carried out to test the hypotheses stated. Findings First, psychological characteristics associated with eating disorders (self-concept and self-esteem) have a positive significant influence on body image attitudes. Second, attitudes toward their body image have a great effect on the perception that these consumers have about the information provided by healthy food packaging. Insofar as those whose attitudes toward their body image is “damaged” seek in the nutritional label indications that make them feel calm understanding that the food they are going to buy is not harmful to their health. Moreover, credibility from health claims improves positive attitudes toward the nutritional label. On the contrary, those consumers with higher punctuations in body image assigned lower values to those items concerning nutritional information and health claims in the packaging. Third, if attitudes to nutritional information improve, then product attitudes improve too. Fourth, if product attitudes improve, then purchase intention improves too. So, food product managers should be aware of the need to improve product attitudes by working on the packaging (label and claim) to improve purchase intention. Originality/value First, although previous literature has investigated individual psychological characteristics related to food disorders in the health area, the study of these specific individual psychological characteristics (ineffectiveness, perfectionism, interpersonal distrust, interceptive awareness, maturity fears), is under-researched in the marketing discipline. Second, to date, different authors have investigated how important the use of credibility from health claims in packaging can be in terms of increasing product attitudes and purchase intention, as well as the development of positive attitudes toward nutritional information on the label. However, the joint study of both information sources in the packaging (credibility from health claims and attitudes toward nutritional labels) remains under-investigated.

Towards a Digital Native Era in Nutrition: Introducing the M-Format Labeling

“…Before the COVID-19 pandemic, although different ways of interpreting nutrition labeling (e.g., Nutri-Score) do not moderate the relationship between perceived health and purchase intention (Medina-Molina & Pérez-González, 2020), this has produced useful results showing the positive evolution of awareness and use of this type of labeling (Sarda et al, 2020). Food manufacturers should be aware of the need to improve attitudes toward the product through labeling and nutritional information to increase credibility and purchase intention (Hernandez-Fernandez et al, 2022). Applications have been developed to allow consumers to retrieve nutritional information based on barcode scanning and interpretive front-of-pack labeling methods (Silva et al, 2022).…”

“…Unfortunately, the relationship between m-commerce food purchasing behaviors and attitudes toward nutrition labels remains under-investigated. Our research identified papers connecting either the topics of nutrition labeling and eating behavior (Roodenburg, 2017;Jones et al, 2019;Medina-Molina et al, 2020;Ikonen et al, 2020;Hernandez-Fernandez et al, 2022) or mobile technology and eating behavior (Maity & Dass, 2014;Kapoor & Vij, 2018;Akram et al, 2020;McLean et al, 2020;Mauch et al, 2021) and rarely a direct link between nutrition labeling and consumer choice in the online environment (Stones, 2016;Zou & Liu, 2019;Brewer & Sebby, 2021;Dana et al, 2021). In the continuously expanding mobile-oriented society the use of smartphones and other mobile devices became the favored method for accessing a wide range of information (Nowlan, 2013).…”