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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Wendy Wrieden
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Objective: To evaluate the impact on food purchasing behaviour of the‘Change4Life Smart Swaps’ campaign to encourage families to make smallchanges to lower-fat or lower-sugar versions of commonly eaten foods and drinks.Design: Quasi-experimental study comparing the proportion of swaps made by anintervention group (267 families who had signed up to the ‘Smart Swaps’ campaignpromoted through various media, including television and radio advertising in early2014) and a comparison group (135 families resident in Wales, signed up for‘Change4Life’ materials, but not directly exposed to the ‘Smart Swaps’ campaign).During weeks 1, 2 and 3 of the campaign participants were asked to record theirpurchases of dairy products, carbonated drinks and breakfast cereals, using amobile phone app questionnaire, when making a purchase within the category.Setting: England and Wales.Subjects: Families registered with ‘Change4Life’.Results: In weeks 2 and 3 a significantly higher percentage of the interventiongroup had made ‘smart swaps’ than the comparison group. After week 3, 58% ofparticipants had swapped to a lower-fat dairy product compared with 26% of thecomparison group (P<0·001), 32% of the intervention group had purchased alower-sugar drink compared with 19% of the comparison group (P=0·01), and24% had made a change to a lower-sugar cereal compared with 12% of thecomparison group (P=0·009).Conclusions: In the short term a national campaign to change purchase habitstowards healthier products may have some merit but the sustainability of changerequires further investigation.
Author(s): Wrieden WL, Levy LB
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Public Health Nutrition
Year: 2016
Volume: 19
Issue: 13
Pages: 2388-2392
Print publication date: 01/09/2016
Online publication date: 22/03/2016
Acceptance date: 15/02/2016
Date deposited: 14/06/2016
ISSN (print): 1368-9800
ISSN (electronic): 1475-2727
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1368980016000513
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980016000513
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