Americans are more likely to bare their sweet tooth at the restaurant or take-out stand while controlling it at home, say two researchers who looked at the ability of dietary advice to counter the “indulgence effect.” As they gain knowledge about healthful diets, people buy healthier foods at the grocery store and then ignore the knowledge when they go out to eat.
“There may be a disconnect when it comes to food-away-from-home settings,” conclude USDA economists Eliana Zeballos and Tobenna Anekwe. Other researchers also have noted that calories seem to matter less to consumers when eating out, possibly because they are seeking tasty foods, or don’t have the same information as they do at home.
“Consumers do care about nutrition, but they care more about other attributes of food as well,” said Zabellos and Anekwe. They cited a study in which consumers rated taste as the most important food characteristic followed at some distance by cost, nutrition, convenience and weight control.
For their work, Zeballos and Anekwe used data from a 2012-13 USDA survey of food purchases by households and their use of nutrition information, such as the Nutrition Facts label on food packages or the Food Pyramid or My Plate food guides. They also calculated a “healthy eating index” (HEI) to show how closely the purchases complied with the Dietary Guidelines. The HEI scores were generally low, reflecting the divergence between dietary advice and what people eat.
Nonetheless, the more a household knew about nutrition, the higher its HEI score, regardless of income level. Households with low use of nutrition information averaged an HEI score of 48, medium-use households averaged 54 and high-use households rated a 56.
“The nutritional quality of food at home is higher than that of food away from home, creating a ‘healthfulness gap'” says the Economic Research Service report. “This healthfulness gap increases with nutrition information use. This finding is consistent with an indulgence effect wherein consumers’ food-at-home acquisitions are more healthful than food-away-from-home acquisitions.”
The gap increases because people buy healthier food at the grocery store as they learn more about healthful diets but their behavior does not change at restaurants, with the exception of higher-income households.
Poor diet is a contributor to obesity and chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and stroke. The Nutrition Facts label has been used for more than a generation. An updated version of the label is to take effect at the start of 2020. Menu labeling was included in the 2010 health care law, was delayed repeatedly and is due to take effect on May 7 for chain restaurants and food retailers.