Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 120-750, Republic of Korea.
Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Tristán Narvaja 1674, C.P. 11200, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Food Res Int. 2017 Apr;94:108-114. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2017.02.005. Epub 2017 Feb 16.
The development of strategies to reduce sugar intake of children and adolescents has been deemed necessary to cope with the global obesity epidemic. In this context, the aims of the present work were to study attitudes towards sugar reduction in three dairy products of children and adolescents of two income levels and to assess if these attitudes were modulated by the inclusion of the traffic light system on labels. A total of 646 children and adolescents from three primary/secondary schools in Montevideo (Uruguay) participated in the study. A total of twelve labels were designed following a full factorial design with three variables: dairy product (3 levels: yogurt, chocolate-flavoured milk and vanilla milk dessert), sugar reduction claim (2 levels: absent and present "20% less sugar") and traffic light system (2 levels: absent and present). Children had to evaluate their expected liking of the labels and to answer a check-all-that-apply question composed of terms related to tastiness, healthfulness and fun. Sugar claim significantly increased children and adolescents' expected liking scores (p=0.01), suggesting they had a positive attitude towards sugar reduction in the evaluated dairy products. However, the influence of sugar reduction claim on hedonic expectations and healthfulness perception was modulated by the inclusion of the traffic-light system on labels (p=0.01). This front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme increased their unhealthfulness perception of products with high sugar content and could potentially discourage their consumption. Age and income modulated the influence of these strategies on hedonic and healthfulness perception (p<0.05).
为应对全球肥胖症流行，有必要制定策略来减少儿童和青少年的糖摄入量。在此背景下，本研究旨在研究两种收入水平的儿童和青少年对三种乳制品中减糖的态度，并评估标签上使用红绿灯系统是否会调节这些态度。共有来自乌拉圭蒙得维的亚的三所小学/中学的 646 名儿童和青少年参与了这项研究。总共设计了 12 个标签，采用三变量完全析因设计：乳制品（3 个水平：酸奶、巧克力味牛奶和香草牛奶甜点）、糖减声称（2 个水平：不存在和存在“减少 20%的糖”）和红绿灯系统（2 个水平：不存在和存在）。孩子们必须评估他们对标签的预期喜好，并回答一个由与美味、健康和乐趣相关的术语组成的“多选一”问题。糖声称显著提高了儿童和青少年对标签的预期喜好评分（p=0.01），表明他们对评估乳制品中的糖减持积极态度。然而，红绿灯系统在标签上的使用调节了糖减声称对享乐预期和健康感知的影响（p=0.01）。这种包装正面营养标签方案增加了他们对高糖含量产品的不健康感知，可能会抑制他们的消费。年龄和收入调节了这些策略对享乐和健康感知的影响（p<0.05）。
