Health/Nutrition food claims and low-fat food purchase: Projected personality influence in young consumers

- Project personality influences healthy claims credibility and physical appearance.
- Physical appearance of low-fat products influences the intention to purchase them.
- Overall attitude to low-fat products influences the intention to purchase them.
- Product category and claims of healthiness used allow explaining these results.

Health/nutrition food claims are increasingly used in the food industry but firms still require deeper research to develop a better understanding of consumers in the low-fat food market. In pursuit of this goal, this paper analyses the influence of projected consumer personality on healthy claim credibility, Perceived product health, physical appearance and its repercussion on attitudes (overall attitude to the product) and behaviours (purchase intention). With a sample of 300 young consumers (15-25 years old) and through PLS techniques, our results show that project personality influences the credibility of claims about healthiness and physical appearance. Both concepts play a significant role in global attitudes to low-fat products. At the same time, physical appearance and the overall attitude to low-fat products influence the intention to purchase a low-fat product. These results can be better understood with the analysis of the product category (juice with milk versus sweets) analysed and claims of healthiness used (6 claims where colour and message are altered).