Facilitating healthy dietary habits: An experiment with a low income population

Michèle Belot, Jonathan James and Jonathan Spiteri

European Economic Review, 2020, vol. 129, issue C

Abstract: This paper tests an intervention aimed at facilitating (cognitively) the adoption of healthy dietary habits. We provide easy-to-understand information about the risks of developing diabetes or heart diseases and give easy-to-follow dietary recommendations to minimize these risks. We implement two variations, one consisting of generic information, the other consisting of information tailored to the individual, the latter resembling newly developed on-line health assessment tools. On top of the information treatment, we implement a second experimental variation encouraging people to spend more time thinking about their decisions. We find evidence that the information intervention leads to healthier choices in the short run, but mostly in the generic treatment. Surprisingly, we find that people are on average pessimistic about their health, and therefore receive good news on average when the information is tailored to them. We find no evidence that increasing the time available to make choices leads to healthier choices, and find no evidence of long-term changes in habits. These results do not support a bounded rationality explanation for poor dietary choices.

Keywords: Health risks; Dietary habits; Bounded rationality; Heuristics; Information; Time availability; Laboratory experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 H51 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Facilitating Healthy Dietary Habits: An Experiment with a Low Income Population (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:129:y:2020:i:c:s0014292120301793

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103550

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