Nudging consumers toward healthier diets: Evidence from the Food Choice App in India

Matty Demont, Jhoanne Ynion, Marie Claire Custodio, Anindita Ray (Chakravarti), Arindam Samaddar and Suva Kanta Mohanty

European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2025, vol. 52, issue 4, 725-758

Abstract: We develop the Food Choice App (FCA) based on the Gastronomic Systems Research (GSR) framework to study how behavioral change communication (BCC) on healthier diets influences diet planning under income shocks. A sample of 192 low- and middle-income households in West Bengal use the FCA to plan their diets by allocating a randomized weekly food budget among 162 Bengali dishes across five eating occasions over seven weekdays. Budget constraints drive carbohydrate prioritization, but BCC exposure and women’s empowerment significantly increase dietary protein density. Findings underscore the importance of targeted nudges across multiple levels of the Gastronomic System to promote healthier diets.

Keywords: behavioral change; Gastronomic Systems Research (GSR); food system; food choice; women empowerment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/erae/jbaf057 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:erevae:v:52:y:2025:i:4:p:725-758.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

European Review of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Timothy Richards, Salvatore Di Falco, Céline Nauges and Vincenzina Caputo

More articles in European Review of Agricultural Economics from Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().