The Role of Intertemporal Preferences, Active Consideration of Health Outcomes, and Simple Health Prompts on the Nutritional Quality of Food Choices

Authors

Olivier Tuyizere, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Christopher R. Gustafson

Date of this Version

10-2022

Citation

Tuyizere, Olivier (2022). “The Role of Intertemporal Preferences, Active Consideration of Health Outcomes, and Simple Health Prompts on The Nutritional Quality of Food Choices.” Dissertations & Theses in Agricultural Economics. University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Comments

A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science, Major: Agricultural Economics, Under the Supervision of Professor Christopher R. Gustafson. Lincoln, Nebraska: October 2022

Copyright © 2022 Olivier Tuyizere

Abstract

This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter introduces the thesis by highlighting a brief review of intertemporal preferences, active consideration of health outcomes, and health prompts during food choices. The introduction paves the way for the following two chapters, which are related, but stand-alone papers.

In the second chapter, we explore a novel question: how does actively considering health outcomes (both current and future) during decision-making affect the nutritional quality of food choices? We explore this question with an online experiment on food choices. Our findings show that active consideration of health outcomes leads to choosing products with high nutritional quality. The results of the second chapter motivate the third chapter, which studies an intervention during decision-making that may influence people’s decision processes.

In the third chapter, we build on the findings of chapter 2 to examine whether a simple message that highlights health impacts of food options leads people to increase the healthiness of food choices. The contribution of this chapter is to examine pathways through which these types of messages act. Specifically, we examine whether the health message changes attention and/or intertemporal preferences. The results show that simple messages during choice increase the consideration of health outcomes but do not change intertemporal preferences. Our findings show that health prompts lead to healthier food choices by increasing consideration of health during choice.

Advisor: Christopher R. Gustafson