Food Package Labels (PL) Deceive Young Children

PLs of fruit‐flavored foods (e.g., candy, beverages) commonly display pictures of fruit and use fruit‐related words in their names, despite containing little or no real fruit. This study determined whether PL information (i.e., food names, artwork) caused children (4–7y; n=58; 52% male) to have false impressions of foods’ fruit content. Each child was individually shown PLs and asked, “Was fruit used to make this food?” This procedure was repeated for all PLs (n=16), which were sequenced randomly. The 2 groups of PLs were foods containing either 100% fruit (n=8) or artificial fruit‐flavors only (0% real fruit; n=8). Two PLs per group had a fruit‐related name, fruit‐related picture, fruit‐related name and picture, or neither a fruit‐related name nor picture. To control for familiarity, PLs were for foods unavailable in the geographical area. Children perceived a food contained fruit when the PL had a fruit‐related name, picture, or both regardless of its true fruit content. The accuracy with which they identified whether a food was made with fruit was significantly lower for foods containing only artificial fruit‐flavors when the PL had a fruit‐related name (p=0.046), picture (p<0.0001), or both (p<0.0001). Findings suggest that foods with 0% fruit with PLs with fruit‐related pictures and/or names deceive children with regard to the foods’ fruit content and, therefore, healthfulness. Grant Funding Source : New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station