Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods, Biotechnology, and Obesity

11. Leveraging Food and Drug Administration Health Claims

eleven Leveraging฀Food฀and฀Drug฀Administration฀ Health฀Claims “Reduce the risk of heart disease.” “Prevent osteoporosis.” Health claims such as these might influence our knowledge, but do they motivate us to change our behavior? When do health claims motivate us to eat better? Although effective food labeling and nutritional health claims can have an important impact on consumers, such efforts are not always successful. This chapter examines how the varying degrees of success of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) health claims provide insights that can help food regulatory agencies in all nations be more effective in their nutrition education and product labeling efforts. Past research on health claims typically has focused on consumers’ perceptions of a health claim’s believability, simplicity, or clarity. Taking this a step further, this chapter discusses how we can encourage the consumption of these healthful foods by leveraging health claims effectively . First, I review how consumers learn about health claims and how their awareness of the diet-health relationship influences the acceptance of these claims. Second, I analyze FDA health claims in the context of consumer learning. Finally, I illustrate the implications of nutritional education and product labeling in the context of soy health claims. How฀Consumers฀Learn฀about฀Health฀Claims Consumers receive information about health claims from a variety of sources. Product nutritional labels are a primary source of this informa11 .137-149_Wans.indd฀฀฀139 3/30/05฀฀฀2:56:43฀PM 140 • labeling that actually works tion, followed by point-of-purchase displays, special educational campaigns , friends, family, and health professionals. Sometimes, however, consumers see such information as misleading or unclear, and it has increasingly become important for other sources (such as academia, public health communities, and medical practitioners) to lend credibility to health claims. In addition, government agencies have been important in helping broaden the reach of nutritional and health messages, particularly when teamed in strategic partnerships. For example, the National Cancer Institute’s “Five-a-Day” campaign to increase fruit and vegetable consumption was conducted in partnership with the Produce for Better Health Foundation. This is growing evidence of the possibilities of publicprivate partnerships and of national-local partnerships. In the case of FDA-approved health claims, many consumers feel that the claims are too vague, wordy, academic, and long. The Nutrition LabelingandEducationActchangedthewaynutritionalinformationispresent ed on food labels, making the information more useful and informative. Still, it is often suggested that consumers neither comprehend nor use nutritional information in their food purchase decisions because they are skeptical of health claims or perceive them as incomplete or misleading. However, there are instances in which consumers can accurately evaluate health claims and information from the nutritional fact panel. By building on these past successes, marketers can develop, format, and disseminate health claims in a way that facilitates a consumer’s interpretation , belief, and use of information on product labels. Knowledge about nutrition influences eating habits only when a person is motivated to act on it. The most common form of motivation is one that ties a consumer’s general knowledge about how nutrition influences health with his or her knowledge of the nutrient content of a particular type of food. Indeed, awareness of a relationship between diet and health is commonly cited as the primary factor that leads to positive changes in a person’s diet. At a basic level, there are two types of knowledge consumers can have about nutrition. First, they can have knowledge about a particular product’s nutritional properties, such as vitamin A content or cholesterol levels. Second, they can have knowledge about how these nutritional properties affect health. The understanding that a diet low in cholesterol helps prevent heart disease or that a diet high in vitamin A helps vision are both examples of this second type of knowledge (Wansink, Westgren, and Cheney 2005). When both of these types of knowledge are jointly present, a higher 11.137-149_Wans.indd฀฀฀140 3/30/05฀฀฀2:56:43฀PM Leveraging฀FDA฀Health฀Claims • 141 level of understanding occurs. Because the consumer knows that a certain type of food contains certain nutritional properties and that those properties produce certain health benefits, the consumer is able to conclude that this food will lead to certain health benefits. This awareness of the connections between diet and health can help provide the motivation to consume recommended foods. Through their placement and wording, FDA health...