Aschemann-Witzel J, Grunert KG, van Trijp HC, Bialkova S, Raats MM, Hodgkins C, Wasowicz-Kirylo G, Koenigstorfer J. 2013. Effects of nutrition label format ...
How do we process nutritional labels? An exploration of the brain regions involved M. Prevost, P. Hot, M. Baciu, B. Ruffieux, P. Crosetto, L. Muller – Grenoble, France Grenoble Applied Economic Laboratory (GAEL) – Laboratory of Psychology and NeuroCognition (LPNC)
BACKGROUND + Guideline Daily Amount (GDA)
Analytic Effortful
= Traffic Light (TL)
New nutritional label (GDA + TL)
Intuitive Automatic
New colorful nutritional labels are now used in some countries to help people better evaluate how healthy are food products. But little is known about how we understand and manipulate colored information to evaluate food products. We are testing how people evaluate anonymous food products from nutritional information displayed as numbers (% of daily amount) or as colors (red, orange, green). We are also testing what strategy they use to make that evaluation (weighted average / focusing on one nutrient / etc.).
We anticipate that deciding how healthy is a food product should be fastest with colors as they are intuitive to process, unlike numbers. However, when many nutrients are involved, similar mechanisms (averaging/simplification) will be involved to evaluate food products from both numbers and colors, recruiting inferior parietal (numbers), orbitofrontal (uncertainty), insular (food) and, limbic (emotion) areas of the brain.
Brain evaluating a food product
Brain processing numbers
1 participant
Gruber et al., 2001
METHODS 3 types of pictures (n=60 per condition) 1/ food in plates 2/ nutritional information from 1 to 6 using GDA system 3/ nutritional information from 1 to 6 using TL system
GDA
TASK AND PROCEDURE
PARTICIPANTS 50 participants for brain imaging analyses 80 participants for behavioral analyses - 18 to 50 y.o., healthy volunteers - Financially compensated for their participation
TL
Functional Magnetic Resonnance Imaging (fMRI)
1
3
5
6 info
Instructions: «Is that food bad, average, or good for your health?»
DISCUSSION Neuroimaging studies will allow for a better understanding of how we process nutritional information, which can then influence our food choices. In the GDA versus TL+GDA systems, colors offer a nudge in avoiding high caloric/fat/sugar food. However, the evaluation of multiple nutrients with varying levels will likely remain difficult, whether these levels are presented as numbers (GDA) or colors (TL).
REFERENCES
- Aschemann-Witzel J, Grunert KG, van Trijp HC, Bialkova S, Raats MM, Hodgkins C, Wasowicz-Kirylo G, Koenigstorfer J. 2013. Effects of nutrition label format and product assortment on the healthfulness of food choice. Appetite, 71:63-74. - Borgmeier I, Westenhoefer J. 2009. Impact of different food label formats on healthiness evaluation and food choice of consumers: a randomized-controlled study. BMC Public Health, 9:184. - Gruber O, Indefrey P, Steinmetz H, Kleinschmidt A. 2001. Dissociating neural correlates of cognitive components in mental calculation. Cereb Cortex, 11(4):350-9. - Hare TA, Malmaud J, Rangel A. 2011. Focusing attention on the health aspects of foods changes value signals in vmPFC and improves dietary choice. J Neurosci, 31(30):11077-87
