NEW YORK - An Internet-based system that provides online food shoppers with
purchase-specific dietary advice helps them buy foods that are lower in
saturated fat than the foods they initially set out to buy, according to new
study findings.
"Internet shopping provides a unique opportunity to modify diets of large
numbers of people at low cost," study co-author Dr. Bruce Neal told Reuters
Health.
Neal, at the University of Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues write in the
online journal PLoS Clinical Trials: "Fully automated, purchase-specific dietary
advice offered to customers during Internet shopping can bring about changes in
food purchasing habits that are likely to have significant public health
implications."
Many supermarkets have introduced online food purchasing over the past 10
years. The team thought that this new medium may present a unique opportunity to
help consumers make better food choices.
To investigate, they recruited 497 online supermarket shoppers and randomly
divided them into two groups.
One group, the study group, received fully automated purchase-specific
dietary advice in real time. When attempting to purchase foods online, these
shoppers were given recommendations for similar products that were lower in
saturated fat. The second group, the comparison group, received nonspecific
advice about consuming foods lower in saturated fat.
During the first shopping session in which study participants received
advice, those in the study group purchased foods that were about 10 percent
lower in saturated fats than the foods they had initially selected, Neal and his
colleagues report. They also purchased foods that were 0.66 percent lower in
saturated fat than the foods purchased by their counterparts in the comparison
group.
Similar patterns were seen in subsequent shopping sessions, the authors note.
What's more, the foods purchased by the two groups did not differ in price,
study findings indicate.
These results imply that "innovative internet shopping companies could offer
significant new services to their customers... (that) could both improve their
customers' health and differentiate their service in an increasingly competitive
marketplace," Neal told Reuters Health.
"This service need not be restricted to saturated fat," he added. "High blood
pressure, weight control and conditions such as heart disease might all be
addressed by a service that checked your purchases for you."
The study is freely available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pctr.0010022
SOURCE: PLoS Clinical Trials, September 2006.
