You do read food labels, don’t you? Exploring psycho-social factors influencing mothers’ choices

Background: Mothers’ purchasing choices play a crucial role in shaping the quality of their children’s food intake. Specifically, several studies have shown that reading food labels can help mothers to make healthier, safer and more informed choices. The present study, relying on an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), aimed to identify the psycho-social factors predicting mothers’ intention and use of food labels before buying food for their children. Methods: 311 Italian mothers (Mage= 38.7, SD = 6) completed an online self-report questionnaire measuring their information-seeking behaviour with a projective technique (i.e., simulating a supermarket environment where mothers could choose which products to buy and whether to read food labels), traditional TPB variables, anticipated regret and healthy-eater identity. Findings: Results from a Multiple Correspondence Analysis highlighted that mothers’ information-seeking behaviour mainly reflected the choice between two alternatives: buying conventional or prepackaged foods vs deciding to read the food label before purchasing. In addition, the results from a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling analysis showed a positive and significant effect of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, anticipated regret, and healthy-eater identity on intention to check in detail how the food is made before buying. In turn, intention and healthy-eater identity positively affected mothers’ information-seeking behaviour. Discussion: Findings suggest that enhancing mothers’ attitudes towards responsible purchasing behaviour, leveraging anticipated emotions and building a healthy-eater identity can represent promising strategies to incorporate into future interventions aimed at promoting food labels use among mothers.