A Meta-analysis of the Effectiveness of Healthy Eating Nudges

Despite nutrition education and healthy eating campaigns, globally, one in five deaths are associated with poor diet. The increasing trend in eating away from home and its correlation with obesity necessitate finding policy instruments that can lead to healthier dietary behavior. If convincing, Nudges—making subtle changes to the context in which people make decisions—would be efficient complements to public health policies. Their effectiveness, however, remains unclear. To address this issue, I conducted a meta-analysis on experiments that measured the impact of healthy eating nudges on away-from-home meal choices. The meta-analysis of eleven studies indicates that these nudges have a small yet significant effect (d=0.28), while highlighting the need for more research in more socioeconomically varied countries. Moreover, through several subgroup analyses, it revealed that this significant effect is larger (d=0.41) for non-calorie-labeling nudges, and smaller (d=0.21) for nudges in settings other than university and company restaurants.