Do people need guidance to estimate a food portion size? Evidence from an exploratory eye-tracker study

A promising strategy to encourage portion control involves clear guidance and portion information on product packaging alongside nutrition details. However, literature on the impact of this information on serving sizes is conflicting. To gather more objective evidence about how consumers interact with on-pack portion guidance, we conducted a laboratory-based eye-tracker study with 66 participants completing two portion-size estimation tasks. In the first, participants estimated serving sizes indirectly by gauging how many people a product pack could serve. The second task involved direct portion size selection using pictorial representations of the food portion on a virtual plate. Additionally, we explored how participants’ familiarity with products affected their portion estimations. Results: when portion guidance was presented, errors in portion estimation significantly decreased only in the indirect task, where 85% of participants showed an improved accuracy. This suggests that the way individuals are prompted to estimate portion sizes influences their approach and their reliance on the provided guidance. Higher error rates occurred when participants were more familiar with the products. For less familiar products, the lower portion estimation errors were associated with the longer fixations on the portion graphic in the indirect task. In addition, participants who quickly noticed the portion graphic provided more accurate portion size estimates. This emphasizes the practical importance of swiftly locating portion information on-pack to enhance estimation accuracy.