The facilitating influence of consumer knowledge on the effectiveness of daily value reference information

As a means of enhancing consumer understanding of nutritional information, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 requires the provision of percentage daily values (%DVs) on food labels. Findings from existing resea rch, however vary in their support for the assumption that including %DVs w ill assist consumers in their efforts to comprehend nutritional information . To shed further light on this issue, the present study examines the moder ating role of consumer knowledge about how to use %DVs in evaluating a prod uct's healthiness. The results indicate that the usefulness of providing %D Vs on a nutritional label depends strongly on this form of knowledge. Impli cations for public policy and directions for future research efforts are pr esented.