Sweet Fight-Promoting Parents'S Perception and Usage of Sugar Information on Children'S Food Package

Background: Recently, front-of-package label has been considered to help consumers choose healthier food. A previous study has found children and adolescents usually drink sweetened milk tea and sweetened tea drinks. Also, the consumption of sweetened tea drink has increased. However, more than 90% of parents will buy sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) for children, and more than half of parents will not read the nutrition label. Therefore, the study explored the effect of front-of-package warning label on parents' perception, attitude and purchase intention of sugar-sweetened milk tea. Method: An online questionnaire survey was distributed to 675 parents with children aged 612 years old, and randomly assigned them to the control group, Chilean warning label group, text warning label group and traffic light label group. Results: 66.2% of parents buy SSB less than twice a week and usually buy fermented milk (50.6%) for children. 52.6% of parents read the nutrition label before buying and pay attention to the sugar content (82.0%). Each group of parents does not know sugar intake and the health of sugar. Compared with other groups, parents of Chilean warning label group can increase their understanding of the sugar content on milk tea and reduce the purchase intention of milk tea for children. Besides, parents are easy to understand and use Chilean warning label. Conclusion: Chilean warning label could increase parents’ understanding, usage and reducing SSB
purchase intention for children. It is suggested thatTaiwan may consider Chilean warning label to help people choose SSB and reduce the consumption of SSB in the future.