ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1527531
This article is part of the Research TopicLabeling and Certification for Sustainability in Food SystemView all 7 articles
Comparing the Influence of Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labels on Saudi Consumers' Understanding and Food Selection
Provisionally accepted
- Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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Introduction. Front-of-pack labels (FoPLs) are key public health tools that help consumers identify healthier food options. Although widely studied, little is known about their effectiveness in Saudi Arabia. This study aimed to determine the most understandable FoPL among five international systems to help Saudi consumers make healthier food choices. Methods. From January 1, 2022, to January 30, 2023, 2,509 Saudi consumers aged 18 years and above were recruited in public places across Riyadh. Participants were asked to select one product from sets of five food categories (bread, cheese, cereals, nuggets, and juice) with different nutritional profiles and then rank the products within each set based on their perceived nutritional quality. These tasks were first performed without any FoPL. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the following five FoPL systems: Health Star Rating (HSR), Guideline Daily Amount (GDA), Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL), Chilean Warning Octagons (CWO), or Nutri-Score (NS), and asked to repeat the same tasks with the assigned label displayed on the packaging. Multivariate ordinal logistic regressions were performed to analyze whether changes in the scores of food choices and the ability to correctly rank the products were associated with the FoPL types, along with various socioeconomic and behavioral factors. Results. The analyses showed that participants improved their food choices depending on the FoPL format and the food category. Nutri-Score (NS) demonstrated a significant improvement in food choices across all food categories (OR = 1.96, 95% CI: 1.24 to 3.17, p = 0.003), particularly for nuggets (OR = 2.18, 95% CI: 1.16 to 3.17, p = 0.038) and cereals (OR = 2.16, 95% CI: 1.28 to 4.53, p = 0.001), compared to the GDA label. All FoPL types resulted in a greater proportion of correct responses in the ranking task compared to the no-label condition. Furthermore, NS emerged as the most influential FoPL in enhancing participants’ understanding of nutritional quality, significantly improving their ability to correctly rank products across all food categories (OR = 5.81, 95% CI: 2.92 to 7.28, p < 0.001). Conclusion. FoPLs enhance nutrition understanding, and Nutri-Score is a strong candidate for Saudi policy adoption.
Keywords: nutrition labels, dietary habits, Food, nutrition, calorie intake, Obesity
Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 28 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Abu-Shaheen, AlQurashi, Marar and AL Rawi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Amani Abu-Shaheen, Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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