Warning Labels and College Students' Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake

The Impact of Warning Labels on Reducing College Students' Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are one of the few dietary items causally linked to the development of obesity and chronic disease. SSB consumption among young adults are particularly concerning, because of the high levels of consumption and the influence of disease risk in later life. College students, particularly freshmen, are a captive audience when it comes to dietary consumption because many of them consume their meals in residential dining halls. We are currently working with Michigan Dining to implement warning labels on SSB fountain dispensers to examine whether carefully tailored signage could alter beverage choices of college students. The current study aims to assess changes in dietary intake before and after the labels are posted, in a representative sample of University of Michigan students who eat at residential dining halls.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Diet, Healthy
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Sugar-sweetened beverage warning label

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1067
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Michigan
    • Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, 48109
      • University of Michigan

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 17 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Currently enrolled student at the University
• Visited one of three large dining halls at least 100 times in the first 1.5 months of the academic year

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention; Sugar-sweetened beverage warning label	Behavioral: Sugar-sweetened beverage warning label; A sugar-sweetened beverage warning label appropriate for the college-aged population was developed and applied to beverage stations at one large campus dining hall
No Intervention: Control; No label

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Beverage Intake Questionnaire-15	The primary outcome is the mean servings of sugar-sweetened and non-sugar-sweetened beverages consumed in the past 30 days, as measured by a validated questionnaire	Four months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Michigan

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Leung CW, Wolfson JA, Hsu R, Soster K, Mangan S, Falbe J. Warning Labels Reduce Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake among College Students. J Nutr. 2021 Jan 4;151(1):179-185. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxaa305.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 6, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 31, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): March 31, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 15, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 15, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): June 17, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): June 17, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 15, 2020
• Last Verified: June 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: HUM00153805

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No