Journal Archive

The United States (US) has been fighting the increased prevalence of obesity as approximately 64% of adults are either overweight or obese (Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2020). As obesity is becoming one of the most serious health problems in the United States (Flegal KM et al 2016), scholars and policy makers have sought a way to promote public health by creating a healthy eating environment (Story M et al 2008). Previous studies have discovered that an increase in the frequency of dining out is associated with the presence of obesity (Guthrie JF et al 2002; Kant AK et al 2015). The foods consumed in restaurants, especially in fast food restaurants, are higher in calories, total fat, and saturated fat or are lower in dietary fiber, calcium, and iron compared to home prepared foods (Guthrie JF et al 2002) and are served in larger portions (Young LR & Nestle M 2007). In order to assist customers in making healthier food choices, menu labeling was proposed as a mandated regulation for chain restaurants with 20 or more locations in the United States in 2010 (US Food and Drug Administration 2017).

Policy makers and public health scholars expected menu labeling in restaurants to be an effective information channel to assist customers’ informed dietary choices among alternative means (Drichoutis A et al 2012). However, previous studies showed mixed results regarding the impact of menu labeling on customers’ decisions. For example, providing nutrition information in menus increased consumers’ understanding of food healthiness and promoted healthy food choices (Ellison B et al 2013; Yoon B & Chung Y 2012). Burton S et al (2009) and Dowray S et al (2013) showed that labeling the calorie content reduces consumption of unhealthy food. In contrast, some scholars found small or no impacts from providing nutrition information (Drichoutis A et al 2006; Finkelstein EA et al 2011; Swartz JJ et al 2011). For instance, Elbel B et al (2009) compared the calories purchased in fast food restaurants before and after the implementation of menu labeling and found no significant changes in customers’ caloric intake.

The literature review’s mixed findings of the impact of menu labeling highlighted the need for researchers to consider other factors to improve the effectiveness of menu labeling. Scholars suggested that the impact of menu labeling may vary based upon demographic factors such as gender, income, age, education, and the level of health consciousness (Cowburn G & Stockley L 2005; Drichoutis A et al 2012; Swartz JJ et al 2011). Yoon B & Chung Y (2012) conducted the study with college students and found that presenting nutrition information in color formats was more effective in influencing the healthy menu choices than presenting the numerical nutrition information alongside the menu item. Ellison B et al (2013) confirmed that the color-coded labeling can lead customers to select lower-calorie items while numeric labels alone did not affect selections in the sit-down restaurant experimental setting.

In addition, the mixed findings also suggest that there may be more effective ways to present nutrition information to increase the menu-labeling policy’s impact. For example, a consumer’s lack of understanding of nutrition information or the complex label format often prevents consumers from understanding and evaluating the menu’s healthiness and hinders making healthy decisions (Andrews JC et al 2011; Cowburn G & Stockley L 2005). Cecchini M & Warin L (2016) suggested that effective formats in menu labeling might assist customers to process food information, which helps them to select healthy items. Current menu labeling mandates the presentation of nutrition information (e.g., calories) with a numeric format, but the way of presenting information could be improved. Based on the exiting literature, the current study proposed the research question on what the better options there are to convey nutrition information to help consumers make healthier menu choices.

The scholars have started to examine the effectiveness of different menu labeling formats on consumers’ perceptions and menu choices (Borgmeie L & Westenhoefer J 2009; Andrews JC et al 2011; Yoon B & Chung Y 2012; Kim E et al 2018). Many of the existing papers (Burton S et al 2009; Ellison B et al 2013) investigated the effect of menu labeling using a numeric format (i.e., providing nutrient amounts in numeric format). However, Dowray S et al (2013) argued that numerical nutritional information might not be a sufficient way to improve the effectiveness of menu labeling. This is because visual features or symbols can reduce cognitive effort and enable customers’ faster information processing (Jones G & Richardson M 2007). Kahn BE (2007) also supported the argument by showing that visual features increase the ease of individuals’ information processing compared to numeric information only as was presented in an online shopping setting.

In the same vein, the U.K. Department of Health (2013) proposed traffic light labeling (TLL) as standardized, unambiguous, and useful in consumer’s decisions regardless of consumer demographics or nutrition knowledge. TLL is coded in a system of three colors; red, yellow, and green indicate high, medium, and low levels of nutrients, respectively. As TLL has been considered a more simplified and visual feature format than typical menu labeling with only numeric information, it has been applied to the front-of-packet labels in supermarkets in the United Kingdom and Australia. The studies support that TLL (color-coded labeling) is the alternative for menu labeling since it provides “at a glance” information to customers (Van Herpen E & Trijp H 2011), which could help consumers pay more attention to the nutrition labeling of food in the sit-down restaurant setting in the United Kingdom (Dowray S et al 2013; Reale S & Flint SW 2016a). Ellison B et al (2013) also found that the color-coded labeling (TLL) leads customers to select lower-calorie items while numeric labels alone did not affect selections in an experimental restaurant setting in the United States. The findings support the study of Reale S & Flint SW (2016b), which show that semi-directive labeling (e.g. color-coded/TLL) significantly impacted customers’ informed food choices. However, few studies have investigated the impact of visual labeling formats in menus (e.g. color-coded/ TLL) on customers’ behaviors in the context of fast food restaurants (Yoon B & Chung Y 2012; Kim E et al 2018). Given that the fast food restaurant environment only allows a short period of time to make the decision on a menu item, more research on the format in menu labeling that is suitable for fast food restaurants is needed. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine the impact of formats for menu labeling on customers’ healthiness evaluations and menu choices in a fast food restaurant setting.

In summary, the results of this study showed that presenting nutrition information either with a numeric format and a color-coded format influences a customers’ perception of the healthiness of menu items. Results from the current study found that the presence of the color-coded format helps to identify healthier foods better and choose healthier menu items than does the numeric format.

This study has several implications for foodservice managers and policy makers to promote customers’ awareness of healthy eating options. From a public policy standpoint, the study suggests that there are potential benefits of applying the visual-feature menu labeling in the fast food restaurant industry. Presenting nutrition information with a numeric format, as is currently mandated for many restaurants, may change the diners’ perception of the menu’s healthiness and their menu choices. However, the color-coded labeling, as an add-on to numeric labeling, is suggested to effectively reach the goal of promoting healthier choices from menus. The color-coded format could be especially effective in the fast food restaurant environment, which encourages customers to order food among a variety of options with constraints and time pressure. Therefore, adding a color-coded feature on menu labeling appears to be an effective alternative for increasing awareness of nutrition information while significantly reducing the effort needed to identify and interpret quality of food.

Additionally, restaurateurs could adopt color-coded menu labeling to meet the needs of customers who pay attention to the nutrient quality of food. Restaurant managers may hesitate to adopt the color-coded menu labeling format due to the less healthful menus that are common in many typical fast food restaurants. However, the provision of effective formats of menu labeling, such as the use of color-codes, a health sign, or a logo, could help restaurateurs take the initiative in creating a healthy eating environment for the public. With the increasing interest in healthy eating and food, the restaurant industry puts effort into promoting healthy eating initiatives to resolve the obesity epidemic; thus, restaurants may gain more positive brand images, leading to customers’ trust and loyalty. Moreover, foodservice practitioners could consider color-coded menu labeling for promoting kids’ menus for parents who pay attention to and purchase quality kid’s meals so they can easily understand the information for their selections. Therefore, providing effective menu labeling (e.g., color-coded) is not only offered as a strategy to differentiate from other restaurants, but also to assist in promoting healthy eating with increased efficiency of communication.

Despite the contributions of the study to foodservice management, this study has several limitations. First, the current study adopted a sample from university students, which may propose a generalizability issue to other demographic groups. Therefore, replicating this experiment among other generations would be a meaningful avenue for future research. Second, the context of this study was fast-food outlets. The effect of nutritional labeling on menus at fine-dining or casual-dining restaurants versus fast-food restaurants would be different since customers at fine-dining or casual-dining restaurants may ignore concerns for caloric content in exchange for indulgence. Conversely, customers at fine-dining or casual-dining restaurants may have the opportunity to spend more time evaluating menu labeling than customers at fast-food restaurants. Therefore, future research may benefit by replicating the experiment of the present study for these other two types of dining establishments. Lastly, the findings of the study within an experimental setting may be different in the real world. Therefore, observation or evaluation of customers’ menu choices in a real restaurant setting would be a more realistic procedure and is recommended to assess the effectiveness of labeling on menus. Notwithstanding these limitations, this study helps to understand the effectiveness of different menu labeling formats on customers’ eating behaviors and to provide practical implications for restaurant managers to promote customers’ awareness of healthy eating options.