Evaluating Consumer Usage of Nutritional Labeling: The Influence of Socio-Economic Characteristics

Introduction

Nutritional labeling has been commonly provided on food products for nearly three
decades. For much of this century, nutritional labeling was largely voluntary and only
loosely regulated to prevent fallacious and misleading representation. The Nutrition
Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), passed in 1990, was intended to ensure the
consistency and validity of the information presented in food labeling. Conceptually,
improvements in label design and data were anticipated to increase the healthfulness
of eating habits and improve consumer diets. However, any modifications in consumer
behavior arising from new label policies are intrinsically limited by the existing use of
nutritional labels. Examination of food label use is now required to determine the
effectiveness of the NLEA and what, if any, changes have occurred that are directly
attributable to the NLEA. One necessary step is to ascertain which consumers are
most likely to make use of nutritional labeling in actual purchase practice. In addition to
aggregate measures of label usage, specific consumer demographic characteristics
can be tested for their marginal contributions to label usage. Interest in consumer use
of nutritional labeling is held by both health and dietary professionals as well as the
food marketing and food processing sectors. In general, the implications of label usage
research provide an array of advantages to a wide scope of commercial and health
care industries.

Measuring food labeling usage should also be beneficial in selectively targeting
segments of the consumer population that would react more favorably toward health-

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