【Article Information】

In March 2026, a research team led by Professor Shenggen Fan from the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy (AGFEP) at China Agricultural University published a paper titled “Childhood Can’t be too Sweet: The impact of information interventions on Sugar-Sweetened beverage consumption among children and adolescents” in Food Policy. The study explores the impact of information interventions on sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption among children and adolescents.

The first author is Xuan Zhichong, a Ph.D. student at the College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University (jointly trained at KU Leuven, Belgium). Co-authors include Li Xinrong, a Ph.D. student at the same college, Professor Zhao Qiran, and Professor Shenggen Fan from AGFEP.

Food Policy is an international academic journal in the field of agricultural economics. It is ranked in the Q1 category across four areas: Economics (general), Agricultural Economics and Policy, Nutrition and Dietetics, and Food Science and Technology. Its latest impact factor is 6.0.

【Article Content】

Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is rising globally, particularly among children and adolescents, triggering a worldwide metabolic health crisis. In rapidly developing countries such as China, rising incomes and the widespread availability of food delivery services have made SSBs more accessible and affordable than ever before, leading to a steady increase in SSB consumption among young people. Faced with this serious public health challenge, traditional fiscal interventions (e.g., SSB taxes) face numerous barriers to implementation in developing countries, and their effectiveness is often limited for children and adolescents who have not yet fully developed the ability to perceive long-term health risks. In recent years, “boosts” strategies based on behavioral economics have gained increasing academic attention. However, several questions remain empirically untested: Can information interventions based on the “boosts” framework effectively reduce SSB consumption among children and adolescents in developing countries? What are the behavioral change mechanisms behind such effects? And are the intervention effects heterogeneously influenced by family environment and individual characteristics?

Based on a large-scale field survey involving 5,427 students in Ruyang County, Henan Province, this study innovatively designed and tested two types of information interventions: “short-term boosts” (video-based health literacy education) and “long-term boosts” (video education combined with persistent visual displays of sugar equivalents). The results show that both interventions significantly reduced SSB consumption, with the “long-term boosts” being more effective (a reduction of 28.3 ml/day, compared to 23.6 ml/day for “short-term boosts”), leading to reductions in total sugar intake of 3.1 g/day and 2.2 g/day, respectively. Mechanism analysis indicates that this reduction effect was primarily driven by a substitution shift toward sugar-free beverages. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that higher pocket money and stronger baseline preferences for SSBs rendered the “short-term boosts” intervention ineffective. However, the “long-term boosts” intervention remained robust against these constraints and generated larger reduction effects among overweight children and adolescents. Furthermore, dynamic analysis shows that the intervention effects gradually decayed over the following days, with a compensatory rebound in consumption on day 7. Therefore, to counteract this effect decay, effective public health policy must shift from isolated school-based information prompts to sustained, periodic reinforcement mechanisms that bridge the gap between school and home and focus on cultivating children’s and adolescents’ “self-nudging” abilities.

【Abstract】

Rising sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption among children and adolescents precipitates a global metabolic health crisis, yet the efficacy of information interventions in emerging economies remains underexplored. Here we report results from a large-scale field experiment in central China designed to test two information interventions: “short-term boosts” (video-based health literacy) and “long-term boosts” (persistent visual displays of sugar equivalents). We show that both interventions significantly reduced SSB consumption, with “long-term boosts” outperforming “short-term boosts” (−28.3 ml day⁻¹ vs. −23.6 ml day⁻¹), resulting in reductions in total sugar intake of 3.1 g day⁻¹ and 2.2 g day⁻¹, respectively, and that these effects were stronger in school than at home. Mechanism analysis reveals that these effects were driven primarily by substitution toward sugar‑free beverages. Notably, heterogeneity analysis reveals that high pocket money and baseline preference for SSBs rendered “short-term boosts” ineffective. By contrast, “long-term boosts” remained robust against these constraints and generated amplified reduction effects for overweight children and adolescents. However, dynamic analysis shows that the efficacy of both interventions waned over the week, culminating in a compensatory rebound in consumption on day 7. These findings demonstrate that while single school-based information interventions can reduce SSB consumption within a limited timeframe, their effects are not sustainable; to counteract the observed decay, effective policy must evolve from isolated school-based prompts to sustained, periodic reinforcement mechanisms that bridge the school-home divide.

【Article Link】

https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1mjZm15oGpSCF1