The influence of front‐of‐pack portion size images on children's serving and intake of cereal

Abstract

Background: Consumption of large portions of energy-dense foods promotes weight gain in children. Breakfast cereal boxes often show portions much larger than the recommended serving size.Objective: This experimental study investigated whether front-of-package portion size depictions influence children's self-served portions and consumption. Methods:In a between-subjects design, 41 children aged 7-11 years (M= 9.0 ± 1.5y) served themselves breakfast cereal from a box, the front of which depicted either a recommended serving size of cereal (30g) or a larger, more typical front-ofpack portion (90g). Cereal served and consumed and total caloric intake (including milk) was recorded. Height and weight, demographic information and measures of children's food responsiveness and enjoyment of food were collected.Results: MANOVA revealed that children exposed to the larger portion size served themselves (+7g, 37%) and consumed (+6g, 63%) significantly more cereal than those exposed to the smaller portion. Despite this, overall caloric intake (milk included) did not differ between conditions, and no other measured variables (hunger, BMI) significantly affected the outcomes. Conclusion:This study provides novel evidence of the influence portion-size depictions on food packaging have on children's eating behaviour. This offers possible avenues for intervention and policy change; however, more research is needed.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Analysing Credibility of UK Social Media Influencers’ Weight-Management Blogs: A Pilot Study

“…Pictures on blogs can display larger servings and extra dishes, with the potential to mislead, again leading to overconsumption [60]. Offline, pictorial portion sizes have been found to be almost 65% larger than recommendations made on the same box [61,62], with recent findings demonstrating that front-of-pack portion size depictions influence children's food intake [63]. Limited by the single product category in these studies, future research should aim to determine whether this occurs for other products and whether similar effects occur online.…”

The Homeostatic Theory of Obesity: An Empirical Verification of the Circle of Discontent with an Assessment of Its Relationship to Restrained and Uncontrolled Eating among Children and Adolescents

“…However, we can find studies both confirming these assumptions [ 32 , 33 , 35 , 36 , 37 ], and contradicting them or showing that the relationship among the variables is weak [ 38 , 39 ]. Still, other studies indicate the need to include moderators and mediators (e.g., sex, stress, size of image on food packaging targeting children) of the relationships we analyze [ 40 , 41 , 42 ].…”

Downsizing by design – Investigating acceptance, choice and willingness to pay for portion control design concepts

“…As packages for HED snacks are generally developed with adults in mind, and family sizes are better value for some HED items, portions may need to be adjusted to match the age and stage of the child. Packaging can be designed with recommended amounts displayed front-of-pack (McGale, Smits, Halford, Harrold, & Boyland, 2020) or with functional compartments to limit portion size (Argo & White, 2012;Bui, Tangari, & Haws, 2017;Holden & Zlatevska, 2015) and these have been shown to assist with reducing measured food intake (Chu, Tang, & Hetherington, 2021).…”

“…Packaging manipulations influence intake via physical, functional and cognitive means (Chu et al, 2021). For example, smaller serving sizes displayed front-of-pack may "nudge" reduced intake not only for cereals (McGale, Smits, Halford, Harrold, & Boyland, 2020) but for HED snacks.…”