Nyilasy Gergely, Lei Jing, Nagpal Anish, Tan Joseph
Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics,University of Melbourne,Level 10,198 Berkeley Street,Melbourne,VIC 3010,Australia.
Public Health Nutr. 2016 Aug;19(12):2122-7. doi: 10.1017/S1368980016000483. Epub 2016 Mar 16.
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of food label nutrition colouring schemes in interaction with food category healthiness on consumers' perceptions of food healthiness. Three streams of colour theory (colour attention, colour association and colour approach-avoidance) in interaction with heuristic processing theory provide consonant predictions and explanations for the underlying psychological processes.
A 2 (food category healthiness: healthy v. unhealthy)×3 (food label nutrient colouring schemes: healthy=green, unhealthy=red (HGUR) v. healthy=red, unhealthy=green (HRUG) v. no colour (control)) between-subjects design was used.
The research setting was a randomised-controlled experiment using varying formats of food packages and nutritional information colouring.
Respondents (n 196) sourced from a national consumer panel, USA.
The findings suggest that, for healthy foods, the nutritional colouring schemes reduced perceived healthiness, irrespective of which nutrients were coloured red or green (healthinesscontrol=4·86; healthinessHGUR=4·10; healthinessHRUG=3·70). In contrast, for unhealthy foods, there was no significant difference in perceptions of food healthiness when comparing different colouring schemes against the control.
The results make an important qualification to the common belief that colour coding can enhance the correct interpretation of nutrition information and suggest that this incentive may not necessarily support healthier food choices in all situations.
本研究旨在探讨食品标签营养着色方案与食品类别健康程度的相互作用对消费者食品健康认知的影响。三种颜色理论流派（颜色注意力、颜色联想和颜色趋近-回避）与启发式加工理论相互作用，为潜在的心理过程提供了一致的预测和解释。
采用2（食品类别健康程度：健康对不健康）×3（食品标签营养着色方案：健康=绿色，不健康=红色（HGUR）对健康=红色，不健康=绿色（HRUG）对无颜色（对照））组间设计。
研究设置为一项随机对照实验，使用不同格式的食品包装和营养信息着色。
来自美国全国消费者小组的196名受访者。
研究结果表明，对于健康食品，营养着色方案降低了感知到的健康程度，无论哪种营养素被着上红色或绿色（健康程度对照=4.86；健康程度HGUR=4.10；健康程度HRUG=3.70）。相比之下，对于不健康食品，将不同着色方案与对照组进行比较时，食品健康认知没有显著差异。
研究结果对颜色编码可增强营养信息正确解读这一普遍观点做出了重要修正，并表明这种激励措施不一定能在所有情况下支持更健康的食品选择。
