Adherence
Actively considering the health impacts of food choices during the decision-making process significantly increases the nutritional quality of selected foods, independent of an individual's intertemporal discount rate.
To eat healthier, you must actively engage your attention on health consequences during the moment of choice. Simply having nutrition labels available is not enough; you must consciously choose to consider how the food affects your health. You can facilitate this by using visual cues (like star ratings) or prompts that draw your attention to health impacts, which has been shown to lead to significantly healthier selections.
Our results show that participants who actively consider health outcomes choose products with significantly higher nutritional quality compared to those who do not consider the health impacts of choices, even while controlling for discount rates.
Why this rating
Randomized experiment with large N (502), controlling for demographics and discount rates, though hypothetical.
Source
The relationship of active consideration of health outcomes and intertemporal preferences to choice process variables and nutrition: evidence from an experiment on food choice
Olivier Tuyizere et al. · Frontiers in Behavioral Economics · 2023
DOI 10.3389/frbhe.2023.1219281
More from this paper
- Lower intertemporal discount rates (higher patience) are associated with the selection of foods with higher nutritional quality, independent of active health consideration.Good
- Actively considering health outcomes during food choice leads to longer decision times, increased use of nutrition information, and consideration of healthier product sets, distinguishing it from habitual decision-making.Good
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