Consumers confused by health claims

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Consumers are often confused by health claims on food labels, according to a review of research carried out on behalf of the Agency in anticipation of a new European Regulation on health and nutrition claims.

According to European Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, which applies in the UK from 1 July 2007, health claims should only be authorised if they are well understood by the average consumer.

This condition will be important both in deciding whether a claim should be authorised, and in the enforcement of the presentation of claims when deciding whether consumers are being misled.

In order to help implement this condition, the Agency commissioned EdComs, a specialist educational consultancy, to conduct a review and analysis of the existing scientific literature in this area.

To take account of as much relevant information as possible, EdComs also considered research conducted into consumer understanding of food labelling in general, where this could be used to draw conclusions about consumer understanding of claims.

Key findings

● There is a lot of contradictory evidence in this area, with few conclusive findings. Understanding of claims is affected by a series of factors, including who the consumer is (sex, ethnic origin, education, etc), whether they are seeking particular information, what this is and why they are looking for it.
● Language is important and research consistently shows that consumers are more likely to understand short and simple claims.
● Prior knowledge and concerns that consumers already have can affect their understanding of claims, as familiarity of the nutrient and the diet-disease relationship can affect consumer understanding.
● Many consumers are confused by health claims, although this changes and understanding can quickly evolve as advertising and usage familiarises consumers with the relationships claimed.
● Consumers generally do not see a clear distinction between nutrition, health and disease risk reduction claims, and can infer a health or disease risk reduction claim from a nutrition claim.

The Agency's main objectives in commissioning the report were to:

● Bring together, review and analyse current research on consumer understanding of claims, and also labelling where this would inform our knowledge of consumer understanding of claims.
● Gather information on how consumer understanding of claims varies across different population groups, to gain insight into the understanding of the "average consumer".
● Draw conclusions from existing research to see whether there are areas where further information would be useful, and to inform the direction that any additional research conducted in future could take.

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