Making healthy behavior more accessible : The effects of nutrition shelf labels and a goal priming message on attitude, perceived behavioral control and healthy decision making in the supermarket

Objective: Consumers aim at adopting a healthier lifestyle but in practice experience a lack of understanding of nutrition information. This study focused on measuring the effectiveness of simplified nutrition labels on shelves and of a health supporting goal priming message on attitude and healthy decision making in the supermarket. Also the effect of nutrition labels on perceived behavioral control (PBC) was measured. Method: This online experiment aimed at resembling a realistic supermarket setting containing an dairy section. The experiment had a 2 (nutrition label vs no label) x 2 (goal priming message vs no message) between-subjects design. Results: Results showed that there were no effects of both nutrition labels and a goal priming message on healthy decision making. Also, there was no effect of nutrition labels on PBC and attitude. There was in fact a negative effect of a goal priming message on attitude. Conclusions: Results suggest that goal priming messages are not as effective as expected and that it might be more beneficial to focus on strengthening self-regulating skills. There is reason to believe that the ineffectiveness of nutrition labels was context-related. However, more research is necessary to strengthen these conjectures. Keywords: nutrition labels; goal priming message; healthy, supermarket