How Supermarkets Can Help You Eat Healthier: Study Finds – NDTV Food

Over the years, we have seen more and more people adapting to healthy lifestyle. When we say healthy living, food plays a major role in it. Let’s agree, healthy eating and healthy living go hand in hand. This is why health experts encourage including more and more nutritious ingredients in our everyday diet. A recent study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, states that ingredient placements in supermarkets may help encourage you to eat healthy. How, you ask? As per the study, restricting supermarket placement of less healthy items and increasing the availability of healthier alternatives in these stores may be promising interventions to encourage healthier purchasing behaviours. These were the findings of two new studies conducted by Camren Piernas and colleagues from Oxford University.

In the first study, the researchers conducted a survey in three major supermarket chains in the United Kingdom where they studied human behaviour on the basis of product’s availability, placement, promotions, and signage (of healthier products). “They found that increasing the availability of healthier options within a category was associated with significant changes in purchasing,” the study reads.

The second study conducted a survey on people by removing chocolates and candy from prominent locations within a UK supermarket. This study was conducted for seven weeks leading up to Easter. As per the study, “The researchers found an attenuation in the usual seasonal increase in confectionery sales; units of confectionery sales increased by 18% in the control stores during the pre-Easter period but only 5% in the intervention stores.” This means, buyers in intervention stores ended up adding fewer calories to their grocery basket.