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Objective: The present study aimed to (i) assess the appetitive drives evoked by the visual cues of ultra-processed food and drink products and (ii) investigate whether text warnings reduce appetitive drives and consumers' reported intentions to eat or drink ultra-processed products.Design: In Study I, a well-established psychometric tool was applied to estimate the appetitive drives associated with ultra-processed products using sixty-four image representations. Sixteen product types with four exemplars of a given product were included. Pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) served as controls. The two exemplars of each product type rated as more appetitive were selected for investigation in the second study. Study II assessed the impact of textual warnings on the appetitive drive towards these thirty-two exemplars. Each participant was exposed to two picture exemplars of the same product type preceded by a text warning or a control text. After viewing each displayed picture, the participants reported their emotional reactions and their intention to consume the product.Setting: Controlled classroom experiments SUBJECTS: Undergraduate students (Study I: n 215, 135 women; Study II: n 98, 52 women).Results: In Study I, the pictures of ultra-processed products prompted an appetitive motivation associated with the products' nutritional content. In Study II, text warnings were effective in reducing the intention to consume and the appetitive drive evoked by ultra-processed products.Conclusions: This research provides initial evidence favouring the use of text warnings as a public policy tool to curb the powerful influence of highly appetitive ultra-processed food cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented which discusses the advertising of unhealthy, processed food and drinks to children in Brazil.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article on the advertisements and marketing of transnational food and drink companies in children.

Objective: To assess the effect of different front-of-package labelling (FOPL) schemes on the objective understanding of the nutritional content and intention to purchase products, in Panama., Design: Single-blinded multi-arm parallel-group randomised controlled trial., Setting: Supermarkets across Panama. Participants were exposed to two-dimensional images of fifteen mock-up products presented at random and balanced orders. Participants assigned to the intervention groups were exposed to mock-ups featuring one FOPL scheme: black octagonal warning labels (OWL), traffic-light labelling (TFL) or guideline daily amounts (GDA). The control group was not exposed to any FOPL scheme., Participants: Adult supermarket shoppers ( n 1200). Participants were blinded to group assignment., Results: A similar number of participants were randomised and analysed in each group: OWL ( n 300), TFL ( n 300), GDA ( n 300) and control ( n 300). The odds of choosing to purchase the least harmful or none of the options more often was the highest in the OWL group. Compared with the control group, these odds were two times higher in the OWL group (OR 2·13, 95 % CI 1·60, 2·84) and 57 % higher in the TFL (1·57, 1·40-2·56), with no changes in the GDA (0·97, 0·73-1·29). OWL also resulted in the highest odds for correctly identifying the least harmful option and for correctly identifying a product with excessive amounts of sugars, sodium and/or saturated fats., Conclusions: OWL performed best in helping shoppers to correctly identify when a product contained excessive amounts of nutrients of concern, to correctly identify the least harmful option and to decide to purchase the least harmful or none of the options, more often.