ABSTRACT
Background
The U.S. food and beverage industry recently released a new front-of-package nutrition labeling system called Facts Up Front that will be used on thousands of food products.
Purpose
To test consumer understanding of the Facts Up Front system (Facts Up Front) compared to the Multiple Traffıc Light system (Traffıc Light). Facts Up Front displays grams/milligrams and percentage daily value information for various nutrients; Traffıc Light uses an interpretive color- coded scheme to alert consumers to low, medium, and high levels of certain nutrients.
Design
Participants in an Internet-based study were randomized to one of fıve front-of-package label conditions: (1) no label; (2) Traffıc Light; (3) Traffıc Light plus information about protein and fıber (Traffıc Light); (4) Facts Up Front; or (5) Facts Up Front plus information about “nutrients to encourage” (Facts Up Front).
Setting/participants
A total of 703 adults recruited through an online database in May 2011 participated in this study, and data were analyzed in June 2011.
Main outcome measures
Total percentage correct quiz scores were generated reflecting partic- ipants’ ability to compare two foods on nutrient levels, based on their labels, and to estimate amounts of saturated fat, sugar, sodium, fıber and protein in the foods.
Results
The front-of-package label groups outperformed the control group on nearly all of the nutrient quizzes (p 0.05). The control group did not differ from the Facts Up Front group on the saturated fat quiz, or from the Facts Up Front group on the sugars quiz. Those in the Traffıc Light group had the best overall performance (80% on all quizzes).
Conclusions
Overall, those in the Traffıc Light condition performed better than those in the Facts Up Front conditions on measures of nutrition knowledge and label perceptions.