Traffic light signals and healthy food choice: Investigating gender differences

Abstract

Nutrition labels conveying nutrition information using traffic light signals are becoming common, but traffic light signals' effectiveness to help consumers make healthy food decisions is still debated. In the current research, we propose gender differences in the usage of traffic light signals. In Study 1, we presented male and female participants with a nutrition label that we manipulated as either unhealthy or healthy by changing the nutrient amounts, and the nutrition label either had a green or red color frame surrounding it. Although both men and women responded equally to information conveyed in text form, men were more likely to rely on the color to help them assess the target food product's healthiness. We replicated this result in Study 2: Holistic thinking mediated the men's reliance on color labeling schemes when deciding to buy a targeted food product. These results suggest there are differences in the consumer groups (segmented by gender) for whom traffic light signals on food packaging would be beneficial in playing a role in healthy food decision-making. For policymakers, our findings indicate that target consumers need to be considered in nutrition labeling generally.

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