The Effect of Marketer-Suggested Serving Size on Consumer Responses: The Unintended Consequences of Consumer Attention to Calorie Information

Nutritional labels are mandatory on virtually all packaged food items sold in the United States. The nutritional information on these labels is reported on a “per-serving-size” basis. However, unbeknownst to many consumers, current Food and Drug Administration regulations allow manufacturers some discretion in setting serving sizes— a factor that the authors hypothesize has implications for consumer behavior. For example, adopting a smaller serving size allows marketers to reduce the reported calories, fat, sugar, and carbohydrates in a product serving, which in turn can influence the anticipated consequences of consumption. Three studies show that manipulating the serving size, and thus calories per serving, for equivalent consumption amounts influences the anticipated guilt of consumption, purchase intentions, and choice behavior. However, the results also show that individual difference and context variables, which heighten consumer attention to nutritional information in general, often focus attention on calorie information but not serving size. This leads to the counterintuitive finding that more nutritionally vigilant consumers are more heavily influenced by serving size manipulations. The authors discuss the managerial and public policy implications.