Front-of-Package Disclosures on Children’s Drink Packages Can Improve Purchase Choices, UConn Research Finds

Adding front-of-package ingredient disclosures significantly increases caregivers' ability to identify the presence and absence of common ingredients in sweetened fruit drinks and flavored waters and unsweetened 100% juice, according to a new paper from researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut and New York University.

The study, published in Public Health Nutrition, demonstrated that standardized disclosures improved caregivers' understanding of ingredients and reduced perceived healthfulness and intent to purchase sweetened drinks, including a U.S. children's drink brand purchased by the majority of caregivers.

Child health experts recommend that children under age 5 should not have any drinks that contain added sugar or diet sweeteners, yet 45% of 2- to 4-year-olds consume sweetened drinks, primarily fruit-flavored drinks, on a given day.

Previous research has shown that marketing on product packages, including fruit images and nutritious-sounding claims (such as "100% Vitamin C" and "All Natural" ingredients), make it difficult for caregivers to know when drinks contain added sugar or diet sweeteners and lead them to infer that sweetened children's drinks are healthy for their children.

This study is the first to demonstrate that a standardized front-of-package ingredient disclosure that indicates the presence or absence of diet sweeteners, added sugar and percent juice on both sweetened and unsweetened children's drinks would correct these common misperceptions, according to reserachers.

"Most parents don't want to give their child drinks with added sugar or diet sweeteners, but companies make that very challenging. We show that clearly disclosing ingredients on the front of children's drink packages cuts through the marketing hype and helps parents recognize what is really in the drinks they buy for their children," says Fran Fleming-Milici, Director of Marketing Initiatives at the Rudd Center. "Requiring standardized front-of-package ingredient disclosures is a promising strategy to reduce children's sweetened drink consumption."

Additional key findings:

•          Disclosures were particularly effective at helping caregivers recognize children's drinks that contain diet sweeteners. For example, 76% of caregivers who saw a Capri Sun Roarin' Waters (flavored water) package with the disclosure recognized that the product contained diet sweeteners, compared to only 45% who saw the existing package without the disclosure.

•          The disclosures were effective even when on packages with common nutrition-related claims and images of fruit.

•          The disclosures reduced perceived healthfulness and intent to purchase sweetened fruit drinks and flavored waters, but they did not increase perceived healthfulness or intent to purchase 100% juice or unsweetened juice/water blends.

•          The disclosures were consistently effective across all demographic groups examined, including education level and race/ethnicity.

Current labeling regulations and practices fail to provide caregivers' the information they need to choose healthier drinks for their children, the research emphasized.  Bottom line:  Front-of-package disclosures on children’s drink packages can increase caregivers’ understanding of product ingredients and aid in selecting healthier children’s drinks.

The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health promotes solutions to food insecurity, poor diet quality, and weight bias through research and policy.  After 10 successful years at Yale, the Rudd Center joined the University of Connecticut's Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP) in 2015.