Calorie Information avoidance and food temptation

Contrary to standard economic models of information acquisition, individuals may actively choose to seek or avoid information, depending on the sign of valence of the expected outcome from the information search. On one hand, people may avoid calorie information, as it may impose self-control or temptation costs on consumers. On the other hand, people may also seek information that improves decision-making or in situations where one is indifferent to the outcome. Given these various reasons to both avoid and seek information, it should be no surprise that the literature has shown that calorie information can either increase, decrease, or have no impact on the demand for healthier alternatives when revealed to consumers. The aim of this study is twofold. First, we seek to identify the change in peoples’ preferences when realized calorie amounts are lower, equal, or greater than their initial expectations. We provide a theoretical intuition to explain the apparent anomalies of food consumption in response to food calorie information. More specifically a positive (negative) difference between actual and expected calorie information will induce a reduction (increase) in food consumption. If the actual calorie information closely matches the expected calorie information, then there is no difference in food consumption. We test this calorie expectation-realization hypothesis in a controlled experiment where menus are constructed with items that have 900, 600, and 300 calories and are placed in binary menus with a fixed option that contains 600 calories. Second, we study how people choose to willfully expose themselves to calorie information in such an environment. In doing so, we intend to identify the mechanisms leading to the inconsistent findings in previous literature and provide marketers and policymakers with additional insight into how consumers respond to caloric and other health information.