The effect of visual cues on the perception of sugar content ofsome snacks and diet products

It has been shown that presenting visual contents along with labels of nutritional elements that have negative effects on health to consumers can direct consumers to healthier choices. The purpose of this study is to examine how the perception of the amount of added sugar contained in commonly consumed standard and diet snacks sold in grocery stores changes when a visual aid is added in addition to the use of the existing energy and nutrients table. 162 (n, Group 1:81, Group 2:81) volunteer individuals aged 18-35 living in Izmir between April 2022 and June 2023 were included in the study. Of the individuals in Group 1 (n=81) participating in the study, 50.6% were women and 49.4% were men; 54.3% of the individuals in Group 2 (n=81) are women and 45.7% are men. Individuals in Group 1 were first shown 5 standard and 5 diet snacks individually, one by one, and were asked to guess how many cubes of sugar and how many teaspoons of sugar the relevant product contained, based on the amount of sugar on the nutrition label. One week later, the same procedure was repeated by visually displaying the amount of sugar contained in the products in a test tube. Individuals in Group 2 were first visually shown the products and the amount of sugar they contained in a test tube, and after a week, they were shown alone and asked to guess how many cubes of sugar and how many teaspoons of sugar the relevant product contained. As a result of the study, individuals who visually saw the amount of added sugar contained in the snacks, regardless of the processes, estimated the amount of both cube sugar and teaspoon sugar in higher amounts (p <0.05). In addition, although strawberry kefir (9th product) in the diet products category is the product containing the highest amount of sugar, it was determined that an average of 56.8% of the participants evaluated this product as the healthiest product. Presenting the contents of nutritional elements, such as sugar, which are known to have negative effects on health, using visual signs on food labels can direct consumers to healthier food choices.