A Simpler Nutrition Label Could Change The Way We Eat

Most Americans eat far too much food, a trend that has helped feed an obesity epidemic that shows no sign of ending.

Nutrition experts have blamed any number of factors. But a crucial ingredient in how people decide what to eat, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Marketing Research, could be how foods — both healthy and unhealthy — are presented in stores.

The study, co-authored by Boston College assistant marketing professor Hristina Nikolova and University of Pittsburgh marketing professor J. Jeffrey Inman, analyzed the shopping habits of some 535,000 people at a major national grocery chain before and after stores began using the Nutritional Value scoring system, or NuVal.

That system, established by an independent team of nutrition, public health and medical experts in 2008, assigns each food product a score ranging from 1 to 100, indicating its level of nutrition, and displays that score next to its shelf price.

The analysis considered customer purchases in eight categories — ice cream, frozen pizza, granola bars, spaghetti sauce, yogurt, salad dressing, soup and tomato products. It found that labeling the nutritional value of products resulted in a 20 percent increase in the nutrition content of purchases in those categories.