Polish Consumers' Understanding of Different Front-of-Package Food Labels: A Randomized Experiment.

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Public Health
• Consumer Behavior

Background:

• Dietary practices are crucial for preventing chronic diseases.
• Front-of-package labels (FoPL) are a strategy to improve population-wide dietary habits.
• Understanding different FoPL systems is essential for their effective implementation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the objective understanding of five different FoPL systems among Polish adults.
• To compare the effectiveness of Health Star Rating, Multiple Traffic Lights, NutriScore, Reference Intakes (RI), and Warning Label.
• To investigate how FoPL understanding varies across different food categories and age groups.

Main Methods:

• An online randomized study involving 1159 Polish adults.
• Objective understanding was measured by comparing nutritional quality ranking tasks with and without FoPL.
• Multivariable ordinal logistic regression was used to analyze associations between FoPL exposure and understanding.

Main Results:

• NutriScore and Warning Label showed significantly improved objective understanding compared to RI across food categories.
• Young adults (18-30 years) demonstrated the most significant improvement in understanding with NutriScore.
• NutriScore generally enhanced objective understanding of FoPL, particularly among younger demographics.

Conclusions:

• NutriScore and Warning Label are more effective than RI in improving objective understanding of nutritional quality.
• Targeted implementation, especially for NutriScore among young adults, could enhance dietary choices.
• Findings inform the ongoing discussion regarding a harmonized EU-wide FoPL system.