Parents’ experiences of using labelling information when making breakfast cereal choices for their children

Abstract

The consequences of a poor quality diet are slow to develop and easy to ignore, however, the impact on the health of communities as a whole is great (Lean, 2015). With the current upward trend in obesity, especially in children, this review looks into a variety of food labelling systems in order to determine their influence on consumers’ eating habits. The food labelling systems currently in place are only partially effective, with some seeming to demonstrate complete operational failure, therefore more research is needed in order to understand the cognitive processes used by consumers when making decisions using food labels. As a commonly consumed product which varies widely in nutritional content, and displays an array of different types of labelling information, breakfast cereal could benefit from further research into how the different food labelling systems are used and understood by consumers.