Add a Legume to Your Cart

May 13, 2026 updated by: University of Milano Bicocca

Add a Legume to Your Cart: The Role of Tailored Communication in Promoting Healthier and More Sustainable Food Purchasing - A Study Within the Framework of the PNRR 10 ON FOODS Partnership

This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of a healthy diet promotion intervention focused on increasing legume consumption. The intervention is delivered via mobile application in a sample drawn from the healthy adult population.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This study investigates the effects of different communication strategies on behavioral change. The intervention is designed to promote legume consumption. After compiling different profiling and assessment questionnaires, participants watch one of three different possible type of brief video performed by professional actors that discuss the benefits of eating more legumes in terms of health and environmental benefits. Then, with an ad-hoc designed task, they do a simulated grocery shopping and an automatic task to assess approach-avoidance tendency towards meat vs. legumes dishes. Finally, explicit attitudes are assessed.

Group differences are explored across three experimental conditions, which vary in the communication strategies. Group 1 watches a video with an educational communicative style and content (EDUCATIONAL), group watches a video presented with a persuasive style, and general content (PERSUASIVE), while group 3 watches a persuasive video with tailored content, based on the profiling phase (TAILORED).

The primary aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of these different communication strategies on attitudes and legume purchase. Secondary aims include the investigation of differences in other unspecific purchases.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

682

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Italy
      • Milan, Italy, 20126
        • Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • be university students (enrolled in a bachelor's degree, master's degree/specialized degree/single-cycle degree program, or postgraduate education);
  • own a smartphone.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • consume an adequate amount of legumes (> 3 servings);
  • suffer from one or more conditions that could represent a contraindication to the consumption of certain specific categories of legumes, such as favism, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, short bowel syndrome and/or leaky gut, forms of intestinal dysbiosis, or other intestinal disorders.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Educational
Participants watch a video with an educational content and communicative style about the benefits of eating legumes
Other: Educational
Participants watch an educational video about the benefits of eating legumes. Then, they perform the grocery shopping simulation and the automatic task for approach/avoidance assessment
Experimental: Persuasive
Participants watch a video with an educational content and a persuasive communicative style about the benefits of eating legumes
Other: Persuasive
Participants watch a persuasive video with educational content about the benefits of eating legumes. Then, they perform the grocery shopping simulation
Experimental: Tailored
Participants watch a video with a persuasive communicative style and tailored content about the benefits of eating legumes
Other: Tailored
Participants watch a persuasive video with a tailored content about the benefits of eating legumes. Then, they perform the grocery shopping simulation

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Portions of purchased legumes - task 1 - simulation on online grocery shopping
Time Frame: T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by the end of the day.

In the first task, specifically designed for the present study, participants are asked to complete a simulated online grocery shopping for the following week. The task is structured to closely resemble a real shopping experience: each item can be added to the virtual cart in a potentially unlimited number of units, with higher values indicating larger quantities purchased and a value of zero indicating that the item was not selected.

The primary outcome will consist of the total number of legume-based items selected, subsequently converted into servings. This conversion process will be carried out by the nutrition research team.
T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by the end of the day.
Explicit attitudes about legumes
Time Frame: T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.

Participants were asked to express their opinions about legumes using six different bipolar scales, introduced with the following instruction:

"Now think about legumes (e.g., chickpeas, peas, beans, lentils, broad beans). Which adjectives do you consider most appropriate to describe them? Please respond to each pair of adjectives without overthinking your answer."

The bipolar adjective pairs were as follows: negative-positive; bland-tasty; isolating-convivial; unsatisfying-satiating; difficult-easy; loser-winner.

Responses were recorded on 7-point scales ranging from 1 (indicating the negative pole of each adjective pair) to 7 (indicating the positive pole of each adjective pair).
T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.
Swipe Approach-Avoidance Task (SwipeAAT)
Time Frame: T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.

The Swipe Approach-Avoidance Task (SwipeAAT) is a smartphone-based version of the Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participants interact with visual stimuli according to specific instructions. Stimuli must either be "approached" (by swiping upward) or "avoided" (by swiping downward) depending on the instructions provided. Reaction times recorded during task performance are analyzed to infer spontaneous behavioral tendencies of approach or avoidance toward the presented stimuli.

To assess spontaneous approach and avoidance tendencies toward legumes and meat, two scores were computed for each participant:

Legume SwipeAAT score, calculated as the difference between the mean of all valid latencies (see Data Exclusion) for the "Avoid legumes" trials and the "Approach legumes" trials.

Meat SwipeAAT score, calculated as the difference between the mean of all valid latencies (see Data Exclusion) for the "Avoid meat" trials and the "Approach meat" trials.
T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.
Intention to increase legumes portions in the future - single ad hoc item
Time Frame: T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.
Participants were asked to report their future intention to increase their weekly consumption of legumes using a single-item measure ("Do you intend to increase your consumption of legumes in the near future?"). Responses were provided on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 ("absolutely not") to 5 ("absolutely yes").
T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Portions of other purchased items - task 1 - simulation on online grocery shopping
Time Frame: T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.
In addition to legumes, purchases made during the online grocery shopping simulation task will also be analyzed for other categories of interest, including meat, fruit and vegetables, processed foods, and related product categories.
T1 - day 3. After compiling the baseline assessment (T0) at day 1, participants received the link to complete the second part of the survey at day 3, which was to be completed by day 3.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Milano Bicocca

Investigators

  • Study Director: Patrizia Steca, University of Milan-Bicocca
  • Principal Investigator: Maria Elide Vanutelli, University of Milan-Bicocca

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 17, 2025

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 13, 2026

Study Completion (Actual)

March 13, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 6, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 13, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

May 20, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 20, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 13, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • RM-2025-1014
  • PE00000003;CUP D93C22000890001 (Other Grant/Funding Number: Italian Ministry of University and Research funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU)

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

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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