There are major racial-ethnic disparities in the US childhood obesity epidemic. Among children age 1-5 years, Black children are twice as likely to be obese and Latino children are three times as likely to be obese compared to White children. Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) and processed food consumption are major drivers of the childhood obesity epidemic, and an important driver of racial-ethnic obesity disparities. Policies to reduce marketing and require warning labels are important strategies for improving health outcomes among US parents and children at risk for obesity. Understanding the impact of nutrition claims on fruit drink purchases among Black and Latino parents is especially important given pre-existing disparities in early childhood SSB consumption and obesity. However, little is known about the relationship between nutrition claims and SSB purchases among racial-ethnic minorities. Thus, it is important to understand the effect of nutrition claims on racial-ethnic minority parents' purchases of fruit drinks. Another key research gap relates to the impact of warning labels for processed food among this population. Thus, in this study the investigators also aim to test warning labels on food/snack products as part of this study.
Setting: The trial will take place in a virtual convenience store setting created for researchers to examine how store and product characteristics influence consumer purchases in a controlled but realistic environment.
Recruitment: Participants will be recruited online through Kantar's currently available panel participants. Interested potential participants will complete a screener online, and if they are eligible, they will be redirected to the consent form.
Informed consent: Participants will view an online consent form prior to participating in the study, They will acknowledge their consent by proceeding onto the study.
Randomization: After acknowledging consent, participants will be randomized to one of 12 versions of the store(see trial arms). Participants will have an equal chance to be randomized to one of the arms of the store.
Assessment: Participants will enter the virtual convenience store and be given a shopping task to select 2 beverages (task 1) for their child age 1-5 who celebrated their birthday most recently. The participant will have to select between 100% grape juice and a grape-flavored fruit drink, and they will have to select between water and an apple-flavored fruit drink. After selecting two beverages, the participant will then be directed to complete a snack shopping task (task 2). After completing the two shopping tasks, the participant will be redirected to an online survey to complete. Participation in the study will last approximately 15-18 minutes.
Trial arms: All participants will complete two shopping tasks where they have to (1) choose between a grape fruit drink and a 100% grape juice, and choose between an apple fruit drink and water, and (2) choose between a snack with a nutrient warning label or a snack with no warning label. There will be 4 versions of the fruit drinks that participants will be randomized to. They will see either a fruit drink with no claim (control) or a fruit drink with 1 of 3 claims ("No artificial sweeteners," "100% vitamin c daily value," "100% all natural"). For the snack with the nutrient warning label, participants will see either a control label (barcode) or a nutrient warning label (text or graphic).
