Nutrition Claim Impacts on Urban Nepalis' Food Choice

Introduction:Obesity is a growing health problem worldwide among children and adults. In the poorest developing countries, rates of obesity and overweight tend to be higher among people of higher SES. In Kathmandu, western-style shopping outlets are expanding to meet the demands of consumers with increasing buying power. As a result, the food environment is changing rapidly, and it is unclear how Nepali’s food choices will be impacted.

One aspect of food decision-making is the influence of food packaging, including front-of-package nutrition claims (FOP NCs). FOP NCs on food can be both beneficial and harmful for consumers. In one sense, FOP NCs can help consumers more easily identify healthy foods. However, halo effect biases may lead consumers to unduly attribute overall healthfulness to unhealthful food products bearing an FOP NC.

This study aims to better understand urban Nepali adults’ perceptions of FOP NCs on food packaging, and how the claims might influence food choices. We measured the effect of FOP NCs on middle/upper-class Nepali consumers’ evaluation of packaged food products and their subsequent purchase intentions.

Method: We surveyed 239 adult shoppers in the Nepali capital Kathmandu (M_age= 32.89; SD = 11.07). Fifty eight percent were women, 60% had one child or more, 77% completed at least 12 years of education, and 72% had lived in Kathmandu for at least 10 years.

Participants were recruited at three western-style grocery stores, with a response rate of 79%. They were administered a Nepali language experimental survey in which they provided their purchase intentions and perceptions of healthfulness, taste, naturalness, quality, and attractiveness for familiar food products. Stimuli were counterbalanced to feature FOP NCs or not.

Results: Analyses of product ratings reveal that FOP NCs do impact consumer perceptions, but their impacts differ across products. FOP NCs impacted perceptions of product healthfulness (e.g., fruit juice was viewed as more healthful when it was labeled with an FOP NC than when it wasn’t [t = -2.44; p < .05]), perceptions of product attractiveness to children (e.g., puffed cheese ball snacks were viewed as less attractive to children when labeled with an FOP NC than without the FOP NC [t = 2.43; p < .05]), and purchase intention, which was increased when the product had a simple FOP NC (t = -2.72; p < .05), but decreased when a product had a more complex FOP NC (t = 2.97; p < .05). 

Conclusion: Economic changes in Nepal are fomenting new consumer/industry interactions. This research identifies ways in which consumer behavior may contribute to obesity among Nepalis. Implications for food packaging regulations will be discussed.