Testing Emotional Eating Style in Relation to Willingness to Pay for Nutritional Claims

• Published in: Nutrients Vol. 11; no. 8; p. 1773
• Main Authors: López-Galán, Belinda, de-Magistris, Tiziana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 01.08.2019; MDPI
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Biomedical materials; Blood pressure; Bread; Choice Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Consumers; Consumption; Decision making; Diet, Fat-Restricted; Diet, Sodium-Restricted; Eating; Eating behavior; emotional eating; Emotions; Feeding Behavior; Female; Food; food choices; Food intake; Food Packaging; Food production; Food products; Health Behavior; Health care; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Health policy; Health risks; Humans; Hypertension; Impulsive behavior; Impulsivity; Kidney diseases; Male; Middle Aged; Nutrition research; nutritional claims; Nutritive Value; Osteoporosis; Preferences; Public health; Purchasing; Questionnaires; Risk analysis; Risk factors; Salts; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Willingness to pay; Womens health; Young Adult; Switzerland; Spain; food choices; emotional eating; nutritional claims
• ISSN: 2072-6643; 2072-6643
• DOI: 10.3390/nu11081773

In face of the high prevalence of non-communicable diseases, nutritional claims represent a useful tool to help people to make healthier food choices. However, recent research notes that when some people experience an intense emotional state, they increase their food consumption, particularly of energy-dense and sweet foods. In consequence, this study aims to assess whether emotional eating (EE) style influences the purchase of food products carrying these claims. To this end, a real choice experiment (RCE) was conducted with 306 participants who were asked to evaluate different types of toast. An error component random parameter logit (ECRPL) was used to analyze their preferences for reduced-fat and low-salt claims toast and the effects of the variation of the EE score on individual preferences. Findings of this study suggest that emotional eating negatively impacts purchasing behavior related to nutritional claims. In particular, a decrease of the willingness to pay between 9% and 16% for every unit of toast with nutritional claims was noted when an increase of EE individual score was registered. In this regard, to increase the effectiveness of the nutritional claims, policymakers and private sectors should consider the management of individuals' emotional states in designing public health policies and marketing strategies, respectively.