The influence of the Nutri-Score on the perceived healthiness of foods labelled with a nutrition claim of sugar

PLoS One. 2022 Aug 17;17(8):e0272220. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272220. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

High sugar intake in humans is associated with the development of overweight and other diet-related diseases. The World Health Organization and other health organizations recommend limiting the sugar intake to 10% of the total energy intake. There have been different approaches of front-of-pack labelling to reduce the amount of sugar in food products. Companies use nutrition claims to advertise the sugar content (e.g., without added sugar, 30% less sugar). Such nutrition claims can lead to false assumptions about the healthiness of foods and can lead to health-halo effects. Nutrition claims make products appear healthier than they really are, the aspect advertised in the nutrition claim is transferred to the entire food product. As a result, food products can be perceived as healthy even though they are not. Recently, the Nutri-Score was introduced in an increasing number of countries throughout Europe to provide consumers with an overview of the overall nutritional quality of a product. This study analyzes if the Nutri-Score can help to prevent health-halo effects caused by nutrition claims on sugar. Therefore, an online survey consisting of a split-sample design with more than 1,000 respondents was assessed. The results show that, depending on the initial perceived healthiness of a product, the Nutri-Score is able to prevent health-halo effects caused by claims on sugar. Making the Nutri-Score mandatory when using nutrition claims would be one possible way to reduce misperceptions about unhealthy food and reduce health-halo effects caused by claims on sugar.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Consumer Behavior
  • Food
  • Food Labeling* / methods
  • Food Preferences
  • Humans
  • Nutritive Value
  • Sugars*

Substances

  • Sugars

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv)). For publication we acknowledge support by the German Research Foundation and the Open Access Publication Funds of the University of Goettingen. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.