A small survey study suggests that color-coded food labels may influence how healthy people think a product is, especially when red is used to signal a less healthy nutrient level. Compared with more traditional nutrition-style information, the color-coded labels appeared to make it easier for participants to distinguish between foods they saw as healthier and less healthy.
That does not mean these labels improve diets or health on their own. The study measured perception in an online setting, not real shopping behavior, food purchases or health outcomes. Still, it offers a useful look at how visual shortcuts may shape snap judgments about packaged foods.
Researchers published the study in Current Psychology. The survey included 79 U.S. adults recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. Participants viewed common foods including chicken noodle soup, ranch dressing and peanut butter. Some products showed simplified front-of-pack color cues, while others showed more traditional nutrition information. Participants then rated each product on a scale from harmful to healthy.
The researchers found that the color-coded labels had a stronger effect on those ratings than the more standard format. Red cues appeared to matter more than green ones, suggesting that people responded more strongly to signals of risk than to signals of benefit. In the study’s words, “Red causes us to pause and reconsider a purchase.”
That finding fits with a broader idea from psychology: people often react more strongly to negative information than positive information. In practice, that could help explain why a quick visual warning may stand out more than a numeric panel or a general claim such as “low fat.”
For American readers, the concept may sound somewhat unfamiliar because front-of-pack color systems are more common in parts of Europe than in the United States. These labels typically use traffic-light-style colors to show whether a product is relatively low, medium or high in nutrients such as sugar, salt or saturated fat. The appeal is simplicity. A shopper can understand the signal quickly without stopping to interpret a full nutrition panel.
That simplicity is also why the study is interesting. Many people do not make food decisions in calm, ideal conditions. They are busy, distracted or shopping fast. A label that communicates risk at a glance may shape how a product feels before someone reads a single number.
But the study has important limits. It was small. It relied on an online sample rather than a nationally representative group. It asked participants to rate products in a survey instead of observing what they chose in a store or how they ate over time. It also focused on perception, not whether a label changed someone’s overall diet quality.
So while the findings support the idea that visual cues can influence judgment, they do not show that color-coded labels lead to better eating habits, weight loss or lower disease risk. They show something narrower and still useful: when nutrition information is easier to process, people may respond to it differently.
This study was not funded by any external sources.