Every year, the 6th April is the International Sports Day for Development and Peace. Scheduled in this day to create an indissoluble bond with the first day of the Olympic Games in 1896, this event has the goal to enhance the power of sport, to lead to social changes, to connect people and to promote peace.
How could the food industry support this cause, then?
According to some researches, the nutritional values of the products on the shelves would in fact not be enough to persuade the consumers to do physical activities and prefer healthier life choices[1].
Those studies show that the consumers dedicate an average of 6 seconds to choose a product, so the information on the label must be immediately understandable, otherwise it will be ignored.
Some researchers from the department of psychological sciences from the University of Liverpool decided then to conduct a study, published on the magazine Appetite, that involved 458 adult people, who were shown the images of 5 different types of food and 5 types of beverage.
The participants were asked to indicate which food and beverages had the highest or lowest amount of calories. To evaluate the influence of the different kinds of labels, the participants were asked to choose between products with different types of label: with no label, with labels that indicated just the calories, with labels that indicated how much time you needed to walk if you wanted to burn the calories of this product (that were not indicated), with labels that indicated both the calories and the minutes you needed to walk to burn them.
The results showed that the selection of the least caloric food was definitely easier when the label indicated the time you needed to walk to burn its calories, in comparison to when the label just indicated the calories. For this reason, according to the researches, the results of the study should be considered during the discussion of the possible legislative choices.
Moreover, eating healthy is important, but to stay fit you also need to practice sport regularly. That’s the reason why Probios keeps working hard to promote sport and healthy diet, through the sponsorhip of Udinese and the Official City Camp of the Association, an event that aims to help the young people approach to good habits and healthy eating.
