Unhealthy food consumption is a problem for society, companies, and consumers. This study explores how technology-enabled healthy food labels can impact food choice in an online grocery store context. We conceptualized unhealthy and healthy food choice as a matter of impulsivity problems. Three technology-enabled healthy food labels were derived based on variables that might impact self-control, and their influence on food choice was investigated.
In this study of 405 people, food labels that encouraged self-monitoring, pre-commitment, and social comparison impacted the consumers food choices. For the more impulsive easters, self-monitoring and pre-commitment proved to have a stronger effect. In comparison to non-impulsive eaters, which were more effected by social comparison. Overall, the findings suggest that self-monitoring of previous healthy food choices might be more effective than pre-commitment based on discounts on healthy food products, but these differences were minor. This paper is published at Frontiers in Nutrition.
