Trial reportThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2020
Socioeconomic position and the impact of increasing availability of lower energy meals vs. menu energy labelling on food choice: two randomized controlled trials in a virtual fast-food restaurant.
Trial report in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effectiveness of digital nudging in improving dietary quality: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Socioeconomic position and the effect of energy labelling on consumer behaviour: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Pooled it
- The impact of the consumer and neighbourhood food environment on dietary intake and obesity-related outcomes: A systematic review of causal impact studies.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Pooled it
- The effect of healthier menu item price reductions in the out-of-home food sector on energy purchased and consumed: a restaurant-based pilot experiment.BMC public health · 2025Trial
- Examining the moderation of the relationship between socio-economic status and consumption intentions by food information labels.Appetite · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Beyond one-shot nudges: the effects of repeated interventions for healthier online meal ordering.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Neighbourhood out-of-home food environment, menu healthiness, and their associations with meal purchasing and diet quality: a multiverse analysis.Nutrition journal · 2025Article
- Barriers and facilitators to healthy eating in disadvantaged adults living in the UK: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Is the effect of menu energy labelling on consumer behaviour equitable? A pooled analysis of twelve randomized control experiments.Appetite · 2023Article
- The role of health-based food choice motives in explaining the relationship between lower socioeconomic position and higher BMI in UK and US adults.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2022Article
- Is altering the availability of healthier vs. less-healthy options effective across socioeconomic groups? A mega-analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2022Article
- Rumination and Worry Selectively Modulate Total Calorie Consumption within an Online, Nudge Tactic Paradigm.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Article
- Increasing availability of lower energy meals vs. energy labelling in virtual full-service restaurants: two randomized controlled trials in participants of higher and lower socioeconomic position.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFood consumed outside of the home is often high in energy and population level interventions that reduce energy intake of people from both lower and higher socioeconomic position (SEP) are needed. There is a lack of evidence on the effectiveness and SEP equity of structural-based (e.g. increasing availability of lower energy options) and information provision (e.g. menu energy labelling) interventions on food choice.
methodsAcross two online experiments, participants of lower and higher SEP made meal choices in a novel virtual fast-food restaurant. To be eligible to take part, participants were required to be UK residents, aged 18 or above, fluent in English, have access to a computer with an internet connection and have no dietary restrictions. Participants were randomized to one of four conditions in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design: menu energy labelling present vs. absent and increased availability of lower energy options (75% of menu options lower energy) vs. baseline availability (25% of menu options lower energy). Participants also completed measures of executive function and food choice motives.
resultsThe analysis of pooled data from both studies (n = 1743) showed that increasing the availability of lower energy options resulted in participants ordering meals with significantly less energy on average (- 71 kcal, p < 0.001, partial η
conclusionsIn a virtual fast-food environment, energy labelling was ineffective in reducing total energy ordered for both higher and lower SEP participants. Increasing the availability of lower energy options had an equitable effect, reducing total energy ordered in participants from higher and lower SEP.
trial registrationStudy protocols and analysis plans were pre-registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/ajcr6/).
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.