Warning labels could help customers identify hidden sugar in restaurant menus
Illustrations depict the pattern menu objects, with sugar warnings, that examine contributors had been proven. Credit score: Jennifer Falbe, UC Davis

Do you actually need to order a soda along with your burger? Only one soda can have extra added sugar than all the day by day restrict beneficial for many adults.

Seeing a warning icon on a restaurant menu could assist shoppers establish the excessive quantities of added sugar hidden in menu objects—and it could even persuade them to achieve for more healthy objects like water.

These are the observations recorded in a brand new College of California, Davis, examine. In a nationwide survey sampling greater than 1,300 adults, researchers discovered that added-sugar warnings with icons plus textual content, or icons solely, had been efficient at getting a “excessive added sugar” warning message throughout to folks. The survey happened in 2021.

“Extra added sugar in our meals provide is a number one driver of Kind 2 diabetes, which is predicted to have an effect on about half of all U.S. adults of their lifetime,” stated the examine’s lead creator, Desiree Sigala, UC Davis postdoctoral researcher within the Division of Molecular Biosciences.

The examine, printed on-line within the July subject of the journal Preventive Medication, is believed to be the primary of its variety to design and take a look at the results of added-sugar warnings for restaurant menus. And whereas america Meals and Drug Administration requires massive chain eating places to make some vitamin info obtainable in eating places, there’s presently no requirement for added sugar to be publicly disclosed for restaurant meals, researchers stated.

This leaves shoppers at midnight concerning the excessive ranges of added sugar of their meals, which might contribute to unfavourable well being outcomes, researchers stated. New York Metropolis just lately sought to handle this drawback by passing a legislation requiring added-sugar warnings on prepackaged restaurant menu objects. Policymakers throughout the nation are contemplating comparable warnings for added sugar on restaurant menus.

“By exposing the excessive quantity of added sugar in unusual restaurant meals, these warnings might assist shoppers make knowledgeable choices,” stated senior creator Jennifer Falbe, UC Davis assistant professor of vitamin and human growth within the Division of Human Ecology. “However extra importantly, requiring these warnings might incentivize eating places to supply a greater variety of choices that aren’t loaded with sugar.”

The icons, designed by the examine staff, resemble cease, yield, and “warning” visitors indicators.

Warning icons are a easy approach to equip shoppers with vitamin info and nudge corporations to enhance the healthfulness of their merchandise, with out taking on area on the menu, researchers stated.

Within the on-line, randomized examine, contributors had been proven both a management label (a QR code), one in every of six doable icon-only added sugar warning labels, or one of many icons mixed with three textual content variations: “excessive in added sugars,” “excessive sugars” and “sugar warning.” Every icon contained an exclamation mark or an exclamation mark with a spoon. Whereas icon-plus-text and icon-only labels garnered favorable responses amongst contributors in comparison with the management labels for the outcomes of perceived effectiveness and data of things’ added sugar content material, there have been no important variations when evaluating icon-only to icon-plus-text labels, researchers stated.

In accordance with the researchers, the design of the labels was based mostly on sodium warning labels required by legislation for New York Metropolis and Philadelphia chain restaurant menus.

Moreover, most contributors within the examine, or 80%, supported the added-sugar warning labels getting used on restaurant menus.

“These promising outcomes assist the necessity to additional develop and take a look at restaurant menu added-sugar warning labels by conducting experiments with menu ordering outcomes to find out behavioral results,” Falbe stated.


Common soda fountain serving exceeds day by day beneficial added sugars


Extra info:
Desiree M. Sigala et al, Perceived effectiveness of added-sugar warning label designs for U.S. restaurant menus: An internet randomized managed trial, Preventive Medication (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107090

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