Walk this way: calorie information signage encourages healthier purchases

The best way to convince consumers to go for low-calorie drinks? Tell them how far they’ll have to walk to burn off all the calories in a sugary beverage.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health found that teenagers who saw printed signs outlining how many miles they’d need to walk to burn off the calories in a sugar-sweetened beverage were more likely to select a lower-calorie beverage, a healthier beverage or a smaller-sized beverage.

What’s more, the message must have stuck: the teenagers made the same healthier choices for weeks after the signs came down.

The study further compounds research suggesting that showing calorie counts on menus doesn’t work to persuade consumers to opt for healthier options. This is bad news for the Affordable Care Act, which will see calorie counts displayed on menus in large chain restaurants. The researchers say policymakers need to reconsider how this information is communicated.

“People don’t really understand what it means to say a typical soda has 250 calories,” said study leader Sara N Bleich, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School.

“If you’re going to give people calorie information, there’s probably a better way to do it. What our research found is that when you explain calories in an easily understandable way such as how many miles of walking needed to burn them off, you can encourage behaviour change.”

In six corner stores in low-income, predominantly black Baltimore neighbourhoods, the researchers displayed signs outlining a key fact about the number of calories in a beverage: how many calories it contained, how much sugar it contained, how long one would have to run to burn off those calories or how far one would need to walk to burn off the calories.

Before the signs were put up, 98% of drink purchases in the stores were sugary beverages. After the signs went up, regardless of which message they contained, the number dropped to 89%. When compared with behaviours prior to the signage going up, the most effective sign was the one which told shoppers they’d have to walk five miles to burn off the calories.

Overall, the average number of sugary drink calories purchased dropped from 203 to 179 after the signs were posted. The size of beverages purchased also fell, while the number of teenagers who chose not to purchase a drink at all fell from 27 to 33%. Water purchases increased from 1 to 4%.

“This is a very low-cost way to get children old enough to make their own purchases to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages and they appear to be effective even after they are removed,” Dr Bleich said.

“Black adolescents are one of the groups at highest risk for obesity and one of the largest consumers of sugary beverages. And there is a strong scientific link between consumption of sugary beverages and obesity. Using these easy-to-understand and easy-to-install signs may help promote obesity prevention or weight loss.”

The research was published in the American Journal of Public Health.