“Codazo theory.” It’s how we could translate Anglo -Saxon expression, “Nudge Theory”, Which refers to the study of actions focused on giving us A “little push” Towards a specific decision. The concept is especially used in the context of the behavioral economy, That place where the economy is mixed with psychology.
We know that companies often resort to these “pushcins” to lead us to purchases that generate more benefits but can we use this tool to improve health?
Digital tool. The answer is yes, and there are many researchers who work to develop this type of tools. The last It has been developed By a team of Duke-Nus Medical School and it is a digital tool that aims to facilitate the task of choosing healthier products in our purchase on-line.
An imperfect system. Choosing healthier food products is not always easy. Yes, we can always make sure that our purchase car is full of fruits, vegetables and other basic foods to cook at home, but this option is not always realistic.
Labeling systems such as Nutriscore They can help us choose better, but they have Important limitations. The first is that evaluating the healthy of a product in a simple index is not always easy and sometimes leads us to important inconsistencies. The second, that this index must compete with marketing strategies that seek to buy a product, regardless of how healthy or ceases to be.
Beyond labeling. To exceed these limitations, Duke-Nus’s team designed a digital tool destined to facilitate a purchase on-line better informed at nutritional level. This tool complemented the information available on the Internet purchase page, adding additional information.
This additional information included a traffic light based on the index Nutriscore of products, complemented with other tools. First, the page ordered the products based on this index, first showing the healthiest products instead of doing it alphabetically.
Second, the tool incorporated the follow -up of the products in the purchase car, indicating what proportion of food was labeled as green, yellow or red. Third, the digital tool also showed healthy alternatives (with similar prices and characteristics) to selected products.
Studying alternatives. The team tested the tool through an experiment. They asked a group of participants to make three purchases on-line over three to six weeks. Some of the participants used this tool, while others used the conventional portal.
The team observed that the purchase cars of the people of the intervention group scored better in the nutritional index. They also contained less calories, less fat in total and less saturated fats, less sugar and less salt.
The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Public health issue. By will or necessity, there are many people who seek to eat healthier, and that begins in a healthier purchase. Achieving it for oneself is not easy, but it is not to help these people without falling into prohibitions and Tax Methods.
Here is like the behavior economy and Nudge Theory They can help us: the same tool often used to take us to more advantageous options for sellers can also be used to improve the health of consumers who wish to improve their diet.
Image | Lothar Boris Piltz
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