The Effectiveness of High Sugar Warning Labels on Breakfast Cereals

Many approaches have been suggested in various countries to improve the public’s diet, especially that of children. One potential mechanism to influence food choice is to implement warning labels on less healthy food products, specifically those consumed frequently by children, to help parents make more informed food purchases. The objective of this study is to determine whether an explicit, text-based warning label would affect the breakfast cereal purchases of parents who have children aged 8-12 in the home. We explore how their responsiveness to a warning label is affected by their individual characteristics, in particular nutrition knowledge, and how receiving information about the warning label influences their choices. Our findings indicate that although parents would be less likely to choose a product with a warning label, there is significant heterogeneity in responsiveness, and in many cases people are WTP more to get a desired brand than to avoid a warning label.