IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/lunewp/2011_035.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Easily Accessible Nutritional Labelling Increase Consumption of Healthy Meals away from Home? A Field Experiment Measuring the Impact of a Point-of-Purchase Healthy Symbol on Lunch Sales

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper analyses the effect on meal consumption away from home of a point-of-purchase healthy symbol. We base the analysis on a field experiment in a lunch restaurant. Our results suggest that meal consumption does not increase if the meal is labeled with a healthy symbol. Also, the mean nutritional content of meals consumed seems unaffected by the introduction of a healthy labeled meal on the menu. Even if easily accessible and understood, menu labeling therefore seems inefficient in promoting healthier meal choices. Factors influencing meal consumption are meal ingredients and the order of the meal on the menu.

Suggested Citation

  • Thunström, Linda & Nordström, Jonas, 2011. "Does Easily Accessible Nutritional Labelling Increase Consumption of Healthy Meals away from Home? A Field Experiment Measuring the Impact of a Point-of-Purchase Healthy Symbol on Lunch Sales," Working Papers 2011:35, Lund University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2011_035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://project.nek.lu.se/publications/workpap/papers/WP11_35.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rashad, Inas, 2006. "Structural estimation of caloric intake, exercise, smoking, and obesity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 268-283, May.
    2. Roberto, C.A. & Larsen, P.D. & Agnew, H. & Baik, J. & Brownell, K.D., 2010. "Evaluating the impact of menu labeling on food choices and intake," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(2), pages 312-318.
    3. Lin, Biing-Hwan & Frazao, Elizabeth & Guthrie, Joanne F., 1999. "Away-From-Home Foods Increasingly Important to Quality of American Diet," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33733, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nordström, Jonas & Thunström, Linda, 2013. "The Impact of Price Reductions on Individuals' Choice of Healthy Meals Away from Home," Working Papers 2013:21, Lund University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nordström, Jonas & Thunström, Linda, 2013. "The Impact of Price Reductions on Individuals' Choice of Healthy Meals Away from Home," Working Papers 2013:21, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Saksena, Michelle J. & Okrent, Abigail M. & Anekwe, Tobenna D. & Cho, Clare & Dicken, Christopher & Effland, Anne & Elitzak, Howard & Guthrie, Joanne & Hamrick, Karen S. & Hyman, Jeffrey & Jo, Young &, 2018. "America’s Eating Habits:Food Away From Home," Economic Information Bulletin 281119, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Thunstrom, Linda & Nordstrom, Jonas & Shogren, Jason F., 2016. "Healthy meals on the menu: A Swedish field experiment on labelling and restaurant sales," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 11(1), pages 1-6, March.
    4. Sarma, Sisira & Zaric, Gregory S. & Campbell, M. Karen & Gilliland, Jason, 2014. "The effect of physical activity on adult obesity: Evidence from the Canadian NPHS panel," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 1-21.
    5. Peggy J. Liu & Kelly L. Haws & Karen Scherr & Joseph P. Redden & James R. Bettman & Gavan J. Fitzsimons, 2019. "The Primacy of “What” over “How Much”: How Type and Quantity Shape Healthiness Perceptions of Food Portions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3353-3381, July.
    6. Alois Stutzer & Armando N. Meier, 2016. "Limited Self‐control, Obesity, and the Loss of Happiness," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1409-1424, November.
    7. Kee, Jennifer Y. & Segovia, Michelle S. & Palma, Marco A., 2023. "Slim or Plus-Size Burrito? A natural experiment of consumers’ restaurant choice," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    8. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2018. "Smoking, Obesity, and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Japan," Discussion papers 18023, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    9. Huffman, Sonya K. & Rizov, Marian, 2007. "Determinants of obesity in transition economies: The case of Russia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 379-391, December.
    10. Yen-ju Lin & Chun-chih Chen, 2012. "Eating Behavior and the Utilization of Outpatient Services - The Case of Taiwan," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 2181-2197.
    11. Zarko Kalamov, 2020. "A sales tax is better at promoting healthy diets than the fat tax and the thin subsidy," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 353-366, March.
    12. Janice Y. Jung & Barbara A. Mellers, 2016. "American attitudes toward nudges," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 11(1), pages 62-74, January.
    13. Kumcu, Aylin & Okrent, Abigail M ., 2014. "Methodology for the Quarterly Food-Away-From-Home Prices Data," Technical Bulletins 184292, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    14. Biroli, Pietro & Boneva, Teodora & Raja, Akash & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Parental beliefs about returns to child health investments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 33-57.
    15. Philip Gleason & Ronette Briefel & Ander Wilson & Allison Hedley Dodd, "undated". "School Meal Program Participation and Its Association with Dietary Patterns and Childhood Obesity," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c1c533c65a3d4883a9b227c21, Mathematica Policy Research.
    16. Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih & Ahmed Sh. Abdelaziz, 2022. "The Impact of Nutrition Labelling on Customer Buying Intention and Behaviours in Fast Food Operations: Some Implications for Public Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-15, June.
    17. Federico A.Todeschini & José María Labeaga & Sergi Jiménez Martín, 2010. "Killing by lung cancer or by diabetes? The trade-off between smoking and obesity," Working Papers 2010-16, FEDEA.
    18. BARONE, Adriana & NESE, Annamaria, 2014. "Body Weight and Academic Performance: Gender and Peer Effects," CELPE Discussion Papers 129, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    19. Michael McGinnis, J. & Meyers, Linda D., 1999. "Public policy and healthy eating," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 335-341, May.
    20. Charles J. Courtemanche & Joshua C. Pinkston & Christopher J. Ruhm & George L. Wehby, 2016. "Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1266-1310, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer economics; food labelling; experiment; health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2011_035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Iker Arregui Alegria (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/delunse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.