TITLE:
Factors Related to the Reading Nutritional Labels by Consumers
AUTHORS:
Ellen Rodrigues dos Santos, José Eduardo Corrente, Rachel Santos Bueno Carvalho, Giovana Fumes-Ghantous
KEYWORDS:
Association Tests, Label, Logistic Regression
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.14 No.10,
October
31,
2023
ABSTRACT: This study aimed to evaluate the features related to consumers’ reading nutritional
labels in a city in the interior of the São Paulo State, Brazil. A questionnaire
was answered by 100 consumers of a supermarket chain, sociodemographic information
and data related to label reading habits were collected. Tables with percentage
values and bar graphs
were used. Chi-square tests and logistic regression models were performed to
verify the association between the variables and the label reading habits. The factors
that showed significant associations with the reading labels were gender, ease to
understand the labels and access to their information (p 0.10). People
who had already read labels reported to have more difficulty to understand the information
contained on them, and people who had already received instructions on the labels
were three and a half times more likely to read the instructions contained on them
than those who hadn’t received any guidance. This study points to the need to expand the disclosure to consumers
about the contents present on the labels, through more accessible language, so that
the labels fulfill their role to instruct consumers in their choices.