Obesity is a clear and growing public health crisis in the United States. Providing consumers with nutrition information has long been at the forefront of obesity prevention strategies. The extremely high obesity rates in the US suggest that the existing `Nutrition Fact Panels (NFPs)' found on US packages may not be as effective as intended. As a result, `Front of Pack (FOP)' labels, simplified representations of nutrition information on the fronts of packages, have grown increasingly popular as a possible means to increase label effectiveness. It has been suggested that these FOP labels are more noticeable than the traditional NFPs due to their position on the front of the package. They are also believed to ease cross-product comparisons regarding nutritional content. The FDA has featured FOP labels prominently in their strategic plans and has proposed mandating them in the future. Due to this, there has been an increase in FOP related research in the US. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge on FOP labels and establishes and refines important methodologies for the field of label design research. Most existing FOP studies rely on qualitative methods like focus groups, surveys and interviews to evaluate understanding, perceived helpfulness and ease of use of FOPs. This study uses quantitative methods and represents an important first step in understanding FOP labels in the context of attention capture and encodation, the first two steps in an established model of information processing. Additionally, it begins to examine the relationship of the FOP works and the NFP. Six FOP formats containing color coding, facial icons and checkmarks were studied using four experiments.The salient results of Experiment 1 (Change Detection Flicker Task, n=55) indicated that participants were, in general, more likely to detect changes to the FOP location when compared to the NFP location (p<0.0001), suggesting that information placed in FOP locations garnered more attention than traditional strategies. Changes to colored FOPs were detected significantly faster than their non-color coded counterparts (p<0.0001), suggesting color to be a significant factor. Experiment 2 (Eye tracking, n=55) suggested the possibility of a `substitution effect' when the FOP was present; this wasn't universal and it depended on the type of product being viewed. There was also evidence to conclude that when the FOP was present, participants were more likely to fixate on (p=0.0013) and spend longer time viewing (p=0.0032) ANY nutrition information compared with when the FOP was absent. Despite the evidence to conclude enhanced noticeability of FOPs when compared with NFPs in Experiments 1 and 2, there was no indication that FOP presence resulted in higher encodation of nutrition information in Experiment 3 (Recall Task, n=99). In Experiment 4 (Sorting Tasks, n=93), the presence of FOP labels was beneficial to sort tasks, when they were used, but a large number of participants did not use them (~75%). Those that did use them had a higher likelihood of sorting packages correctly (p=0.02).Across the four Experiments, age, education level, income level, BMI and Children Status (Yes/No) emerged as demographics of interest.
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