Front-of-pack nutritional labels: Understanding by low- and middle-income Mexican consumers

Abstract

Front-of-pack labeling is a cost-effective strategy to decrease population consumption of sodium, sugar, saturated fat, total fat, and trans-fatty acids, considered critical nutrients for chronic disease. Our main objective was to explore the subjective understanding of labels that are currently used internationally among low- and middle-income Mexican consumers. We performed two phases of 10 focus groups with adolescents (13–15 y), young adults (21–23 y), mothers of children 3–12 y, fathers of children 3–12 y and older adults (55–70 y). Seven FOPL were evaluated: Guideline Daily Amounts, Multiple Traffic Light, Chilean Warning labels, Warning labels in Red, 5-Color Nutrition Label, Health Star Rating, and Healthy Choice label. Data was analyzed with a triangulation of researchers using a content analysis, based on three codes: 1) awareness and use of the Guideline Daily Amounts, 2) acceptability, and 3) subjective understanding of labels. Most participants were aware of the Guideline Daily Amounts, however they rarely used it because interpreting the information displayed on the label was too complicated. Health Star Rating, Warning labels, Multiple Traffic Light and the Healthy Choice logo labels were the most understandable, however the acceptability of the The Healthy Choice logo decreased as it did not provide information on specific ingredients. The Warning labels was the only label able to warn about critical nutrients that could represent a health risk. The Warning labels in red was more accepted compared to Warning labels in black. Results show that directive and semi-directive labels, such as Warning labels, Health Star Rating or Multiple Traffic Light, may be better at helping population of low- and middle income make healthier food choices, than non-directive FOPL such as the Guideline Daily Amounts implemented in México. The study results highlight the potential of Warning labels to support decreases in the consumption of critical ingredients in low- and middle-income Mexican consumers.

Effectiveness of Different Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labels among Italian Consumers: Results from an Online Randomized Controlled Trial

“…In this article, results for consumer understanding showed that interpretive FoPLs had greater potential than purely informative systems to improve the capacity of Italian consumers to correctly rank the nutritional quality of foods. This finding is consistent with the results of studies conducted in other countries [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], and especially European countries [19,[36][37][38][39][40], with similar trends in FoPL outcomes identified in high-and middle-income countries. Moreover, it appears that summary indicators with a graded scale (i.e., Nutri-Score, HSR) are easier for consumers to understand as they showed the best results in the ranking tasks.…”

Acceptability and understanding of front-of-pack nutritional labels: an experimental study in Mexican consumers

“…The GDA label was the control group because they are required to appear on the FOP of food products in Mexico.Ecuadorian Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL), color coded (red, yellow, and green, respectively), including text descriptors to indicate high, medium, or low content of total fat, sugar and salt.Chilean Warning Labels (WL) in red, indicating when a product exceeds the content of energy, sodium, total sugar and saturated fat. We decided to put the WL in red because previous work by our research group demonstrated this color increased label acceptability [31].

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Impact of front-of-pack nutrition labels on consumer purchasing intentions: a randomized experiment in low- and middle-income Mexican adults

“…3) Chilean Warning Labels (WL) in red. Red WL were used because previous work in Mexican consumers has demonstrated this color increased label acceptability [29] and discouragement from wanting to consume unhealthy drinks [30], both of which are predictors of the effectiveness of FOP labels [5,25,31] Intervention After allocation, participants viewed a video explaining how to correctly interpret the assigned label (the prompt to make their choices with specific nutrients-to-limit in mind). We used official videos used in each country (i.e.…”