NCT07528443

Ultraprocessed Foods in Colombia

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 1,960 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 12 Years – 17 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The study seeks to examine how characters on packaging and warning labels affect purchase intentions and risk perception among children aged 12 to 17 in Colombia and, examine whether characters' presence weakens or reduces the perceived message effectiveness of the warning labels' impact. This will be a 2x2 between-subjects experiment manipulating presence or absence of characters and presence or absence of warning labels. Participants will be randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions in an online survey programmed in Qualtrics.

Detailed description

This study will employ a 2x2 between-subjects experimental design to investigate the independent and combined effects of characters and front-of-package warning labels on children's risk perceptions, purchase intentions and perceived message effectiveness regarding ultra-processed foods. After parents or legal guardians provide informed consent and the children assent to participate, the survey platform (Qualtrics) will randomly assign each child to one of four experimental conditions: 1. Warning label + Character 2. Warning label only 3. Barcode control label + Character 4. Barcode control label only Participants will complete the study online through a self-administered survey programmed in Qualtrics. This survey has a duration of approximately 15 minutes. Each child will be exposed to three fictional ultra-processed food products (cookies package, juice bottle, and chip bag), displayed in random order. The stimuli were developed to resemble common products in Colombia but without using real brands to avoid brand loyalty bias. Each product will be displayed with a label consistent with the child's assigned experimental condition. Children will respond to a series of questions for each product individually. These questions will assess: * Risk perception * Purchase intention * Perceived message effectiveness

Conditions

• Obesity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Warning label	Participants will view images of three products containing octagonal warning labels.
BEHAVIORAL	Barcode control label	Participants will view images of three products containing Barcode control label.
BEHAVIORAL	Character	Participants will view images of three products containing characters.
BEHAVIORAL	Without character	Participants will view images of three products without characters.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-05-01
• Primary completion: 2026-09-30
• Completion: 2026-09-30
• First posted: 2026-04-14
• Last updated: 2026-04-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Colombia