Field study of nutritional information and consumer behavior

营养信息和消费者行为的实地研究

• 批准号: 0935908
• 负责人: Julie Downs
• 金额: $ 7.69万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-01 至 2010-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0935908&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Field; study; nutritional; information; consumer

In the last 25 years, obesity rates in the United States have more than doubled, with nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans being overweight (37%) or obese (26%). One possible factor contributing to rising obesity levels in recent decades is an increase in restaurant dining, because meals prepared and consumed outside the home tend to contain more calories and to have a higher percentage of fat and saturated fat than those consumed in the home. Fast food consumption may play a particularly important role given its association with higher Body Mass Index (BMI) and weight gain. Recently, California enacted a law requiring certain kinds of restaurants to post nutritional information at point-of-purchase locations, beginning on July 1, 2009.In recent research, we found that the effects of providing calorie information in fast food restaurants appear to vary depending on underlying characteristics of the population, including individual differences and prior beliefs or behaviors. Notably, the posting of calorie information had a beneficial effect only where consumers were eating an inappropriately large number of calories and severely underestimating their intake. Arguably, this population is at greatest need for behavior change. However, the limited data from our previous research cannot definitively isolate the predictors of behavior change. We plan to test this and related hypotheses using California?s impending legislation change as a natural experiment. We will construct our sample in order to ensure the appropriate amount of variance on several key dimensions that we expect to moderate the impact of legislation on consumer behavior, and have identified multiple locations of McDonald?s and Burger King chain restaurants in neighborhoods varying along these important demographic factors. We will explore the translation of nutrition information into behavior change overall and in relation to factors such as people?s beliefs about how many calories they should eat and how many calories are in their food, personal goals (e.g., dieting), and current health status as reflected in present BMI. Including employment status as a predictor will offer additional insights into possible effects of economic hardship. The answers to these questions will contribute to the ongoing debate on the power of education and transparency of information to change behavior. California?s new legislation relies on the premise that providing such information will lead people to eat healthier meals, an assumption that remains largely untested. Our findings will inform policy makers about the effectiveness of the current policy as well as how future policies might be refined to better achieve their ends.

在过去的25年里，美国的肥胖率增加了一倍多，近三分之二(63%)的美国人超重(37%)或肥胖(26%)。近几十年来，肥胖水平上升的一个可能因素是餐馆就餐的增加，因为在户外准备和消费的食物往往含有更多的卡路里，脂肪和饱和脂肪的比例也高于在家里消费的食物。快餐消费可能扮演着特别重要的角色，因为它与较高的身体质量指数(BMI)和体重增加有关。最近，加利福尼亚州颁布了一项法律，要求某些类型的餐厅从2009年7月1日起在购买地点张贴营养信息。在最近的研究中，我们发现，在快餐店提供卡路里信息的效果似乎因人群的潜在特征而异，包括个体差异和先前的信仰或行为。值得注意的是，只有当消费者摄入了不适当的大量卡路里并严重低估了他们的摄入量时，张贴卡路里信息才有好处。可以说，这一群体最需要改变行为。然而，我们之前研究的有限数据不能明确地分离出行为变化的预测因素。我们计划用加州S即将到来的立法改革作为一个自然实验来检验这一假设和相关假设。我们将构建我们的样本，以确保在几个关键维度上的适当差异，我们预计这些维度将缓和立法对消费者行为的影响，并确定了麦当劳、S和汉堡王连锁店在社区的多个地点，这些地点随着这些重要的人口统计因素而变化。我们将探索营养信息转化为行为变化的整体以及与人们对他们应该摄入多少卡路里和食物中有多少卡路里的信念、个人目标(例如，节食)以及目前的BMI反映的健康状况等因素的关系。将就业状况作为预测指标将提供对经济困难可能影响的更多洞察。这些问题的答案将有助于正在进行的关于教育的力量和信息的透明度来改变行为的辩论。加利福尼亚州？S的新立法基于这样一个前提，即提供这些信息将导致人们吃更健康的食物，这一假设在很大程度上仍未得到检验。我们的发现将使政策制定者了解当前政策的有效性，以及如何改进未来的政策以更好地实现其目标。