Nutrition Front-of-Pack Labels: Why educating consumers is important

Nowadays issues related to overweight, and obesity are affecting people’s well-being in an unprecedent way, especially in western countries. The importance of promoting healthy food consumption habits is widely recognized and supported by national authorities and international organizations. To encourage consumer healthier food choices, nutrition front-of-pack labels (FoPLs) have been developed. However, to be effective, FoPLs must be rightly understood and interpreted by consumers. The present research aims at investigating whether and how education initiatives about FoPLs can boost FoPL effectiveness, by affecting consumers’ product evaluations and perceived healthiness. In addition, we also suggest that food product attractiveness and consumers’ perception of FoPLs impact the ability of FoPLs in altering food healthiness perceptions and evaluations. This short paper recognizes the need for additional research in the field of nutrition FoPLs and presents and discusses a future research design to test relationships among the aforementioned variables.