Health claims on food packaging can focus on the presence of good (vs. the absence of bad) and the preservation of nature (vs. nutritional improvements). We study the frequency of use of four resulting types of claims (“clean,” “whole,” “diet,” and “enriched”) in three categories over the past ten years and contrast it with the preferences and associations of American and French consumers. Focusing on breakfast cereals, we find a strong match in France but a mismatch in the United States, where marketers’ claim use is negatively correlated with consumers’ claim preferences. The mismatch arises from the underuse of presence-focused and nutrition-based “enriched” claims (e.g., “added calcium”) and the overuse of absence-focused and nutrition-based “diet” claims (e.g., “low fat”). The mismatch is more pronounced among privately-owned companies than among public companies, which tend to claim that their products are healthy in the way that consumers prefer.

食品包装上的健康声明可以集中在好的存在（相对于没有坏的）和保护自然（相对于营养改善）上。我们研究了过去十年在三个类别中四种结果类型声明（“清洁”、“整体”、“饮食”和“丰富”）的使用频率，并将其与美国人和法国人的偏好和关联进行对比消费者。专注于早餐麦片，我们发现法国的匹配度很高，但在美国却不匹配，在美国，营销人员的声明使用与消费者的声明偏好呈负相关。这种不匹配源于对存在和基于营养的“丰富”声明（例如，“添加钙”）的使用不足以及过度使用关注不在场和基于营养的“饮食”声明（例如，“低脂肪”）。