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To read or not to read: The influence of nutrition labels on the judgment and choice of food products.

"Seeing that consuming a healthy diet is an important step in preventing (or limiting) overweight and obesity, it is important for health policy making to establish aids by which consumers can make more informed choices. This thesis focuses on how the information provided to consumers could help them make choices towards more healthy diets. The different nutrition labelling strategies regulated by law include the nutrition information table (which provides the nutrition properties of the food, such as the calorie, sugar, salt and fat content, but also includes the ingredient list) as well as the use of nutrition claims (statements indicating the amount of a specific nutrient in a product, such as “high in fiber”) as well as other types of claims such as Organic or Fairtrade labelling. These types of labelling are relatively new, and for example, nutrition information labelling has been mandatory only as of December 2016. Many questions remain about how these labelling strategies are truly used and understood by consumers, and how they could aid in the choice for healthier foods. Indeed, there is an increasing emphasis on understanding the consumer’s motives for choosing food. Moreover, one’s food-related personal traits likely play a moderating role in food choice. That is why this thesis focusses on how the different information labelling strategies are used and understood by consumers, and if this is impacted by different interpersonal traits, such as food-related involvement, but also numeracy and moral satisfaction. In this thesis, first two theoretical concepts that are crucial for the understanding of this work will be explained: the notion of food-related involvement and the notion of nutrition labelling. After these two theoretical chapters, the empirical research will be discussed. First a quantitative study about the nutrition information table will be discussed. Then a study on nutrition claims, and how these may impact the choice for vegetables for different levels of processing will be discussed. After this, we will discuss how other labelling strategies such as organic and Fairtrade labelling impact food choice. And finally, after these quantitative studies, we will then turn to a mixed methods study in order to understand how consumers make sense of all these different labelling strategies together, and if, when and how consumers (with different levels of food-related involvement) use and understand them." / Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ulb.ac.be/oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/292920
Date10 September 2019
CreatorsMulders, Maria Dorothea
ContributorsKlein, Olivier, Corneille, Olivier, Pohl, Sabine, D'Amore, Salvatore, Grunert, Klaus G, Sibony, A.-L.
PublisherUniversite Libre de Bruxelles, Université libre de Bruxelles, Faculté des Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation, Bruxelles
Source SetsUniversité libre de Bruxelles
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:ulb-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:ulb-repo/semantics/openurl/vlink-dissertation
Format3 full-text file(s): application/pdf | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document | application/pdf
Rights3 full-text file(s): info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess | info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess

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