The Negative Effects of Long Time Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent Labeling on Purchase Intention for Unhealthy Food

Abstract

(1) Background: Obesity has become a global epidemic that arouse much attention from governments, companies and scholar. Physical activity calorie equivalent (PACE) labels are introduced as a more effective nudge invention on less-calorie ordering. However, the effects of PACE labels are controversial in previous literature, thus, the research objective is to explore the effects of different PACE labels and furtherly to explore the underlying psychological mechanism; (2) Methods: Across four scenario-based experiments, involving potato chips, chocolate and cookies, this study manipulated the three calorie-information labeling (standard calorie label, long time PACE and short time PACE labels). Meanwhile, the mediating mechanism of the effects involving anticipatory guilt and the moderation effects between consumers’ future self-continuity and PACE labels are also measured; (3) Results: Results show that compared with the short time PACE and calorie labels, the longtime PACE labels have more negative influence on consumers’ purchase intention for unhealthy food. What’s more, the anticipatory guilt has negative effect of PACE labels as consumers are often prone to feeling guilty in the process of unhealthy food consumption. In addition, individuals with high future self-continuity have higher self-control and take more consideration of future outcomes, they are reluctant to choose unhealthy food than others; (4) Conclusions: Unhealthy food with a long time PACE label has more negative effect on consumers’ purchase intention rather than a short time PACE label. At the same time, companies that produce healthy foods should actively participate in the movement to label calories through the PACE labels.

The Negative Effects of Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent Labels on Consumers’ Food Brand Evaluation

“…The following are the two labels' precise specifications (Figure 3): The words "calorie label" and "PACE label" stand for "2850 kj per serving" and "jogging for 80 min is required to burn off the calories," respectively. The contrasting paradigms PACE and calorie labels refer to previous mature studies [17].…”

“…In a study on alcoholic drinks, PACE labeling had a significantly negative influence on participants drinking intentions [16]. Huang et al (2022) found that unhealthy food with a long time PACE label has a more negative effect on consumers' purchase intention than a short time PACE label [17]. However, a study by Ellison et al (2015) pointed out that few studies examine the context in which food consumption takes place; the effect of labels should be put in context, which means involving other factors [18].…”