Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION
Volume 101, Issue 5, Pages 1055-1064Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.114.096735
Keywords
behavior change; fruit and vegetables; price discounts; skills; randomized controlled trial
Categories
Funding
- National Health AMP
- Medical Research Council Project Grant [594767]
- National Health AMP
- Medical Research Council Principal Research Fellowship [1042442]
- Australian Research Council Future Fellowship [FT100100581]
- National Health AMP
- Medical Research Council Early Career Fellowship [1035100]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Background: Fiscal strategies are increasingly considered upstream nutrition promotion measures. However, few trials have investigated the effectiveness or cost effectiveness of pricing manipulations on diet in real-world settings. Objective: We assessed the effects on fruit, vegetable, and beverage purchasing and consumption of a 20% price-reduction intervention, a tailored skills-based behavior-change intervention, and a combined intervention compared with a control condition. Design: The Supermarket Healthy Eating for Life trial was a randomized controlled trial conducted over 3 mo [baseline (time 1) to post-intervention (time 2) with a 6-mo follow-up (time 3)]. Female primary household shoppers in Melbourne, Australia, were randomly assigned to a 1) skill-building (n = 160), 2) price-reduction (n = 161), 3) combined skill-building and price-reduction (n = 160), or 4) control (n = 161) group. Supermarket transaction data and surveys were used to measure the following study outcomes: fruit, vegetable, and beverage purchases and self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption at each time point. Results: At 3 mo (time 2), price reduction-alone participants purchased more total vegetables and frozen vegetables than did controls. Price reduction-alone and price reduction-plus-skill-building participants purchased more fruit than did controls. Relative to controls, in the price-reduction group, total vegetable consumption increased by 233 g/wk (3.1 servings or 15% more than at baseline), and fruit purchases increased by 364 g/wk (2.4 servings; 35% more than at baseline). Increases were not maintained 6 mo postintervention (time 3). Price reduction-alone participants showed a tendency for a slight increase in fruit consumption at time 2 (P = 0.09) that was maintained at time 3 (P = 0.014). No intervention improved purchases of bottled water or low-calorie beverages. Conclusions: A 20% price reduction in fruit and vegetables resulted in increased purchasing per household of 35% for fruit and 15% for vegetables over the price-reduction period. These findings show that price modifications can directly increase produce purchases. The Supermarket Healthy Eating for Life trial was registered at Current Controlled Trials Registration as ISRCTN39432901.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available