Change In Actual Sizes and Size Labels

Obesity and overweight are becoming an urgent issue in more and more countries. At the same time, the past decade has witnessed an increase in the size of food portions, which is often accused of being partially responsible for the trend of increasing weight. This paper puts focus on soft drinks and investigates the effect of actual sizes and size labels on consumers’ choices. An experiment in the form of questionnaires was conducted among students from Erasmus University of Rotterdam. The results prove partially the author’s hypotheses: people are not completely unaware of the actual size changes, but downsizing the choice portfolio in actual sizes can induce choosing smaller actual sizes owing to the middle option bias. Moreover, changing the size labels (i.e. upsizing size labels) leads to behavior alteration, where more people choose smaller actual sizes, although the shift is not statistically significant. Overall, it supports the hypothesis that consumers are not rational in choosing drink sizes, as they are largely influenced by the portfolio of actual sizes available.