To See or Not to See: Do Front of Pack Nutrition Labels Affect Attention to Overall Nutrition Information?
BACKGROUND
Front of pack (FOP) nutrition labels are concise labels located on the front of food packages that provide truncated nutrition information. These labels are rapidly gaining prominence worldwide, presumably because they attract attention and their simplified formats enable rapid comparisons of nutritional value.


METHODS
Eye tracking was conducted as US consumers interacted with actual packages with and without FOP labels to (1) assess if the presence of an FOP label increases attention to nutrition information when viewers are not specifically tasked with nutrition-related goals; and (2) study the effect of FOP presence on consumer use of more comprehensive, traditional nutrition information presented in the Nutritional Facts Panel (NFP), a mandatory label for most packaged foods in the US.


RESULTS
Our results indicate that colored FOP labels enhanced the probability that any nutrition information was attended, and resulted in faster detection and longer viewing of nutrition information. However, for cereal packages, these benefits were at the expense of attention to the more comprehensive NFP. Our results are consistent with a potential short cut effect of FOP labels, such that if an FOP was present, participants spent less time attending the more comprehensive NFP. For crackers, FOP labels increased time spent attending to nutrition information, but we found no evidence that their presence reduced the time spent on the nutrition information in the NFP.


CONCLUSIONS
The finding that FOP labels increased attention to overall nutrition information by people who did not have an explicit nutritional goal suggests that these labels may have an advantage in conveying nutrition information to a wide segment of the population. However, for some food types this benefit may come with a short-cut effect; that is, decreased attention to more comprehensive nutrition information. These results have implications for policy and warrant further research into the mechanisms by which FOP labels impact use of nutrition information by consumers for different foods.
School of Packaging, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, United States of America.
Laura
L
Bix
School of Packaging, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, United States of America.
Raghav Prashant
RP
Sundar
Department of Statistics, Kansas State University Manhattan, KS, United States of America.
Nora M
NM
Bello
Psychology Cognition and Cognitive Neurosciences Group, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, United States of America.
Chad
C
Peltier
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, United States of America.
Lorraine J
LJ
Weatherspoon
Psychology Cognition and Cognitive Neurosciences Group, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, United States of America.
Mark W
MW
Becker
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D005260:Female; D005515:Food Labeling / Q000379:methods*; D018857:Food Packaging / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018673:Nutrition Policy; D009753:Nutritive Value / Q000502:physiology*; D014481:United States