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‘These findings show that integrating the Nutri-Score label on food packages did not modify cognitive responses of consumers towards these food products. Changing consumption behaviors is challenging and more empirical and theoretical understanding is needed.’
In layspeak, the study says people don’t pay attention to labels on packaging that nudge them to make better choices or limit their serving sizes.
Over 11 years of watching people try to eat better, this unfortunately rings true.
My big three lessons
If you are looking for a label to tell you if a food contextually makes sense for you, the battle is already lost. Education generally means you don’t need a thermometer on a hot pan to tell you the pan is hot. You approach a pan on a stove with care and caution. And you don’t touch it :D. An ‘educated’ client won’t need a label to tell them not to buy a food. They can decipher the numbers or better yet know what they are broadly dealing with by virtue of the ingredients.
There is a decisive moment in the consumption of any food when you just take a bite or none and just walk away from it. You walk away because you know it is incompatible with your desires or health goals. This decisive moment is fleeting. It is harder to do this when you are habituated to capitulating to every whim, signal or desire from your body. Ignoring the impulse to eat something is a hard-won virtue.
Momentum is easily lost and hard to attain. The decision to NOT stock counterproductive foods, ingredients, limit eating out, mindfully indulge in social gatherings and just planning your meals better takes a lot of time and energy. And it takes years before these habits are the default setting. So if you are trying to eat better, you have to treat the goals and habits as fragile ideas in need of constant vigilance, reminders and reinforcement to become the default setting.