What Is Nutritious Snack Food? A Comparison of Expert and Layperson Assessments

Abstract

The term “nutritious” is being increasingly used by product manufacturers but the term is not currently regulated as a nutrition claim. It is unclear how lay consumers and experts define and interpret the term or how they evaluate the “nutritiousness” of various foods. To address this evidence gap, a mixed methods design was applied and both nutrition experts (n = 206) and lay participants (n = 269) provided definitions of the term “nutritious” and evaluated the “nutritiousness” of 20 different snack foods in a cross-sectional survey. Definitions were analysed using Leximancer and snack evaluations were compared both between groups and with nutrient profile scores (UK Ofcom and Australian Health Star Rating). Expert and lay definitions differed considerably, with experts using terms such as nutrient-density, macro- and micronutrients, kilojoules/Calories, while lay consumers used descriptions such as fuel, fresh, natural, body needs, and functioning. Snack evaluations were highly correlated between groups (Rs > 0.89, p < 0.001) and between nutrient profile scores (Rs > 0.75, p < 0.001). However, mean perceptions significantly differed for 18 out of 20 foods with the largest difference for yoghurts (p < 0.05). There are discrepancies between expert and lay perceptions of snack foods and the definition of the term “nutritious”. The results highlight the need for an agreed definition and the potential regulation of the term “nutritious” in food marketing.

Semiautomated text analytics for qualitative data synthesis

“…Leximancer is a text mining software application that was developed by researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, to code automatically large qualitative datasets, and has since been validated and applied in various research dimensions . The software has been used in primary research to explore and develop definitions for terms such as “nutrients” and “disaster resilience” and to analyze opinion polls and transcripts from online discussion groups . It has been used to compare the conceptual similarity of perceptions between stakeholder groups and extended to explore interactional dynamics of real‐life conversations .…”

From groups to grits: Social identity shapes evaluations of food pleasantness

“…Indeed, we found that the impact of social identity remained when accounting for the perceived healthfulness of foods. Lay perceptions of healthfulness may differ from expert opinions (Bucher, Hartmann, Rollo, & Collins, 2017), limiting the extent to which our data may speak to actual healthy eating, but these data suggest that identity influences evaluation above and beyond people's own perceptions of healthfulness.…”

Proceedings of a roundtable event ‘Is communicating the concept of nutrient density important?’

“…However, as outlined previously, the meaning of the term currently remains unclear and different definitions are used; therefore, ascertaining consumer and health professional awareness and understanding of nutrient density is difficult. In this context, it is interesting that a recent study reported very different terminology used to define the ‘nutritiousness’ of foods by experts (who used terms such as nutrient density, macronutrients, micronutrients, kilojoules and calories) compared to consumers (who used terms such as fuel, fresh, natural, body needs and functioning) (Bucher et al ). More recently, a survey of 1000 adults in the US revealed that nearly two‐thirds of respondents had at least heard of nutrient density; however, only 24% felt confident that they knew what the term meant and that they would be able to explain it to someone else (International Food Information Council Foundation ).…”

“…This requires starting with the consumer; thinking about their perspective, experience and needs; and finding solutions that they can understand, make meaning of and appreciate. Research suggests that terminology such as ‘nutrient density’ is used only by limited audiences, and so, there is a need for translation into language understood and preferred by consumers in order to engage them in discussions about diet quality (Bucher et al ). Effective communication of nutrient density may perhaps best be undertaken with the support of behaviour change and communications experts, with a focus on the actionability and memorability of messages, activating people’s behaviour using recognised techniques (such as ease of visualisation, chunking and sequencing information into manageable units, specifying when to act and embedding triggers) (Ratner & Riis ).…”