Providing information on nutrition to people at risk of social exclusion improves their food shopping and healthy habits. This is the conclusion of the study "Impact of actions to improve eating habits in families receiving food aid", carried out by the Red Cross and the International University of Catalonia (UIC Barcelona).

The study, led by Dr Toni Mora, director of the Research Institute for Evaluation and Public Policies (IRAPP) at UIC Barcelona, compared and evaluated the impact of offering nutrition workshops, SMS messages designed by the nutritionists-dieticians of the Red Cross, or financial incentives for users of prepaid Red Cross cards.
The study focused on evaluating the most appropriate action in promoting habit change in people who received food cards. The different actions were:

• Conducting workshops on healthy habits and emotional eating.
• Sending SMS messages with nutritional and purchase advice.
• Providing a monetary incentive to make healthier shopping choices.

Nutrition workshops – the most efficient
The results show that providing information to users improves their food purchases, measured by complementary nutritional indexes. However, there is a greater impact with workshops than with sending SMS messages with nutritional content, although the latter option is more cost-effective. The least impact comes from the provision of economic incentives.

The study calculated the impact on eating habits via three complementary nutritional indices: Healthy Eating Index (IASE), the Healthy Trolley Index (HETI) and the Healthy Purchase Index (HPI). A total of 1,163 users from all over Catalonia participated and the method of analysis used consisted of a randomised controlled action, comparing users who received one of the actions with users with similar socio-economic characteristics who did not receive any incentive (control group).

The study was funded by the Social Observatory of ”la Caixa” Foundation.