The impacts of nutrition information on consumers evaluations toward fast food meals.

摘要

The objective of the study is to investigate how the disclosure of the nutrition information and the nutrient ad disclosures on fast food menu items and the fast food advertisements regarding food quality influence consumers' evaluations of selected fast foods. In addition, this study examines how consumers' prior nutrition knowledge, health consciousness, Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC), motivation to use nutrition information, and education level affect the relationships between the provision of the nutrition information and the nutrient ad disclosures and the exposure to fast food advertisements and the consumers' evaluations of fast food menu items.;Data for the study were gathered using an online survey. Participants were recruited from the listserv of a consumer panel in a major northeastern university in the U.S., of which 449 participants completed the online survey. The data was analyzed by univariate and multivariate analyses including a one-way analysis of variance and a multivariate analysis of variance.;The findings showed that 1) the food quality claims and the favorable nutrition information lead to more favorable evaluations of fast food menu items than do the control and the unfavorable nutrition information condition respectively; 2) the evaluative disclosure is the most effective format to draw participants' critical evaluations of fast food meals of the other formats; 3) people who have high health consciousness, high subjective nutrition knowledge, low BMI, and high visiting frequency of fast food restaurants conduct more critical evaluations of fast food meals than do their counterparts.;For the policy makers, the findings imply that to induce consumers' critical evaluations on fast food menu items, they should improve the current nutrition information format so as to include more specific nutrition information associated with the ingredients of fast food meals. For the fast food restaurateurs, to obtain favorable evaluations of fast food menu items from consumers, they should develop healthy menu items that would increase favorable nutrient content (e.g., protein, calcium, vitamin, etc.) and decrease unfavorable nutrient content (e.g., fat, sodium, and sugar). Lastly, in order to attract the consumer groups who conduct more critical evaluations than do their counterparts, the fast food restaurateurs should increase the proportions of the healthy menu items among their fast food meals.