Do You Find Nutrition Labels Confusing? You're Not Alone, a Recent Survey Says

It should probably come as no surprise that Americans want to be healthier: Even the healthiest among us probably wouldn’t mind being even healthier than they already are. It also probably shouldn’t be surprising that a good chunk of those people would prefer someone else to help them do it: That’s just human nature. But a new survey reveals that many American actually may be facing a significant hurdle to achieving their health goals on their own: A majority of those polled said they found nutrition labels confusing.

Spoon Guru, a tech company that helps with food discovery, survey 2,000 Americans last month and found that only 28 percent said they were confident in their ability to interpret the nutrient values in food. And yet, the poll also found that 74 percent of respondents had tried to improve their health over the past year. As a result, Spoon Guru suggests that grocers might be missing a major opportunity to connect customers to the foods they’d like to be eating.

Specifically, over half of the U.S. shoppers surveyed (54 percent) said they want retailers to do more to encourage healthy eating. That included making healthy options less expensive (67 percent), offering more promotions on health products (44 percent), choosing better in-store placement for healthy foods (32 percent), and suggesting healthy “food swaps” (26 percent).

The survey also tossed out some potential tools U.S. shoppers might be interested in to encourage them to make healthier choices. Spoon Guru found out that 39 percent of respondents would like to see better food labels on packaging, and 37 percent would like to see better food labels on shelves – again suggesting that current labeling might not entirely be cutting it. Meanwhile, Spoon Guru is on the tech side of food discovery, so they also asked if shoppers might be interested in a technological solution to these issues, and 25 percent said sure.

“Americans are trying to adopt a healthier diet, however there is a need for further clarity around nutrition,” said Markus Stripf, co-founder and CEO of Spoon Guru. “In particular, how they can manage their fat, salt and sugar intake to prevent health related illnesses. What is also clear from the research is that a quarter of consumers are open to exploring technology that can assist with the everyday challenge to find the right foods in order to eat healthier.”