Nudging Indian households towards healthier food choices

Urban and rural Indian households express their food choices after being exposed to
nutritional information on healthy diets (photo credit: Jhoanne Ynion)

Kolkata, INDIA— IRRI, through its market analysis research, gains a better understanding of consumer food choices in order to support behavioral change communication programs that aim at nudging consumers to healthier food choices in rice-based diets.

According to IRRI senior economist and leader of the “Behavioral Drivers of Food Choice in Eastern India” (DFC) project, Dr. Matty Demont, behavioral experiments among randomly selected Indian households from Kolkata, Siliguri and rural West Bengal are currently being conducted. Respondents are exposed to several incremental levels of nutritional information on healthy diets through a Behavioral Change Communication (BCC) broadcast featuring renowned nutritionist Dr. Anindita Ray (Chakravarti) from Maharani Kasiswari College, Kolkata. Participants are then invited to plan their weekly household meals through an interactive app (similar to the investment game application) which captures the rich diversity of day-to-day food choices in West Bengal.