Secondary Schools: Invitation to take part in food labelling study

Natalia Iris is a doctoral researcher at Loughborough University, supervised by Professor Amanda Daley and Professor Fehmidah Munir. She has beeen in touch with afPE to see if we can help promote her study to secondary schools.

The study (due to start in September 2022) will look at whether adding a label next to high calorie discretionary foods in canteens (e.g., cakes and biscuits) changes students’ purchasing of these foods. The type of label she would like to use is called “physical activity calorie equivalent labelling” (PACE labelling), which shows how many minutes of physical activity are equal to the number of calories in the cakes/biscuits.

The study has been designed to require minimal input from teachers/schools and we would connect mostly with catering staff/dinner ladies. Schools will be randomised to display a small physical activity calorie equivalent label on a couple of cakes/biscuits in the canteen for up to six weeks or be asked to carry on as usual and not display the labels. She would then need data related to the total number of purchases of these two foods (cakes and biscuits) across the study period.

Each school will be offered a £50 gift card to thank them for participating in the study and school administration costs involved with participating will be covered.

More information about the study can be found on this page.

If your school would like to take part or would like to know more about the study, please email: n.iris@lboro.ac.uk