Trial reportThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2023
How pictorial warnings change parents' purchases of sugar-sweetened beverage for their children: mechanisms of impact.
Trial report in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling for Foods and Beverages Marketed to Children: Behavioral, Nutritional, and Cognitive-Affective Outcomes and Methodological Quality-A Systematic Review.Comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety · 2026Pooled it
- Effect of food swap recommendations on the healthfulness and carbon footprint of grocery purchases in a naturalistic online store: A randomized parallel trial.PLoS medicine · 2026Trial
- Nutrition Info and Other Front-of-Package Labels and Simulated Food and Beverage Purchases: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Ecolabels and the Healthfulness and Carbon Footprint of Restaurant Meal Selections: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- How and why researchers and advocates should engage with state and local food policymaking.Nature food · 2025Review
- Is evoking fear effective? Exploratory findings from a randomised experiment on the impacts of health warning labels on sugar-sweetened beverages.Public health nutrition · 2023Article
- Attitudes of Chinese residents toward sugar-sweetened beverage tax and their willingness to pay: a cross-sectional survey.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Poster Guided Reinforcement Learning technique on sugar intake and oral hygiene knowledge, attitude and practices among adolescents: A cluster randomized controlled trial.Journal of oral biology and craniofacial researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPictorial health warnings on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a promising policy for preventing diet-related disease in children. A recent study found that pictorial warnings reduced parents' purchases of SSBs for their children by 17%. However, the psychological mechanisms through which warnings affect parental behavior remain unknown. We aimed to identify the mechanisms that explain how pictorial warnings affect parents' SSB purchasing behavior for their children using secondary data from a randomized trial.
methodsIn 2020-2021, parents of children ages 2 to 12 years (n = 325) completed a shopping task in a convenience store laboratory in North Carolina, USA. Participants were randomly assigned to a pictorial warnings arm (SSBs displayed pictorial health warnings about type 2 diabetes and heart damage) or a control arm (SSBs displayed a barcode label). Parents then bought a beverage for their child and took a survey measuring 11 potential psychological mediators, selected based on health behavior theories and a model explaining the impact of tobacco warnings. We conducted simple mediation analyses to identify which of the 11 mechanisms mediated the impact of exposure to pictorial warnings on purchasing any SSBs for their children.
resultsTwo of the 11 constructs were statistically significant mediators. First, the impact of pictorial warnings on the likelihood of purchasing any SSB was mediated by parents' perceptions that SSBs were healthier for their child (mediated effect= -0.17; 95% CI = - 0.33, - 0.05). Second, parents' intentions to serve SSBs to their children also mediated the effect of warnings on likelihood of purchasing any SSB (mediated effect= -0.07, 95% CI=-0.21, - 0.003).
conclusionsPictorial warnings reduced parents' purchases of SSBs for their children by making parents think SSBs are less healthful for their children and reducing their intentions to serve SSBs to their children. Communication approaches that target healthfulness perceptions and intentions to serve SSBs may motivate parents to buy fewer SSBs for their children.
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