Obesity
Conditions
Brief summary
The study seeks to examine how characters on packaging and warning labels affect purchase intentions and risk perception among children aged 12 to 17 in Colombia and, examine whether characters' presence weakens or reduces the perceived message effectiveness of the warning labels' impact. This will be a 2x2 between-subjects experiment manipulating presence or absence of characters and presence or absence of warning labels. Participants will be randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions in an online survey programmed in Qualtrics.
Detailed description
This study will employ a 2x2 between-subjects experimental design to investigate the independent and combined effects of characters and front-of-package warning labels on children's risk perceptions, purchase intentions and perceived message effectiveness regarding ultra-processed foods. After parents or legal guardians provide informed consent and the children assent to participate, the survey platform (Qualtrics) will randomly assign each child to one of four experimental conditions: 1. Warning label + Character 2. Warning label only 3. Barcode control label + Character 4. Barcode control label only Participants will complete the study online through a self-administered survey programmed in Qualtrics. This survey has a duration of approximately 15 minutes. Each child will be exposed to three fictional ultra-processed food products (cookies package, juice bottle, and chip bag), displayed in random order. The stimuli were developed to resemble common products in Colombia but without using real brands to avoid brand loyalty bias. Each product will be displayed with a label consistent with the child's assigned experimental condition. Children will respond to a series of questions for each product individually. These questions will assess: * Risk perception * Purchase intention * Perceived message effectiveness
Interventions
BEHAVIORALWarning label
Participants will view images of three products containing octagonal warning labels.
BEHAVIORALBarcode control label
Participants will view images of three products containing Barcode control label.
BEHAVIORALCharacter
Participants will view images of three products containing characters.
BEHAVIORALWithout character
Participants will view images of three products without characters.
Sponsors
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
The Bloomberg Family Foundation, Inc.
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
FACTORIAL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
12 Years to 17 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Children and adolescents between 12 and 17 years old * Colombian residents
Exclusion criteria
* Children with legal blindness, partial blindness, or total blindness, since the study involves viewing images and reading questions.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase intention | During ~15 minute online survey | Purchase intention will be assessed using 1 item: "How likely are you to consume this product?" Responses will be recorded on a 5-point Likert-style scale ranging from 1 ("Not at all likely") to 5 ("Very likely"). Because this is a single-item measure, the total score ranges from 1 to 5. Higher scores indicate greater purchase intention, whereas lower scores indicate lower purchase intention. |
| Risk perception | During ~15 minute online survey | Risk perception will be assessed using 1 item: "How healthy do you think this product is?" Responses will be recorded on a 5-point Likert-style scale ranging from 1 ("Not healthy at all") to 5 ("Very healthy"). Because this is a single-item measure, the total score ranges from 1 to 5. Higher scores indicate that the product is perceived as healthier (i.e., lower perceived risk), whereas lower scores indicate that the product is perceived as less healthy (i.e., higher perceived risk). |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Perceived Message Effectiveness | During ~15 minute online survey | Perceived message effectiveness will be assessed using 3 items, each measured on a 5-point Likert-style scale (1-5): "How much does this label make you worry about what consuming this product will do to you?" (1 = Not at all worried; 5 = Extremely worried) "How much does this label make you think consuming this product is a bad idea?" (1 = Makes me think it's a very good idea to consume it; 5 = Makes me think it's a very bad idea to consume it) "How much does this label discourage you from consuming this product?" (1 = Doesn't discourage me at all; 5 = Completely discourages me) For each product evaluated, a perceived message effectiveness score will be calculated as the mean of the 3 items, resulting in a score ranging from 1 to 5. Higher scores indicate greater perceived message effectiveness, whereas lower scores indicate lower perceived message effectiveness. |
Countries
Colombia
Contacts
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORMaria Parra-Murillo
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
STUDY_DIRECTORMarissa Hall, PhD
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Outcome results
None listed