Factors associated with nutrition information label use among undergraduate students in Chulalongkorn University

Abstract

Background: Teenage students tend to consume more finished or semi-finished food in their daily life because of their time constraints. Nutrition information label plays its important role for selecting healthy semi-finished or finished food products. Conversely, teens do not pay much attention to the information on a label.

Methods: The objective of this study was to assess influence factors relate to behaviors of reading nutrition information label among undergraduate students. Four hundred and thirty two students were selected by proportion to size and simple random sampling technique. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to ascertain their knowledge and attitude on nutrition information label including their reading behavior.

Results: This study revealed that only 18.3% and 4.4% of them had good knowledge and attitude on nutrition information label, respectively. More than 90% of students had poor reading behavior.  The study also found that the level of students’ attitude on nutrition information label associated positively with their reading behavior (p-value< 0.01). In addition, their age was negatively correlated with score of nutrition information reading behavior (r= -0.95, p-value< 0.05).

Conclusion: Findings of this study suggested that university should encourage students to increasing attention to nutrition information label before consuming food products.