The Effects of Nutritional Labels on University and College Students - Research Paper Example

How the Use of Food Label and Nutritional Content Impacts Dietary Preferences among College of Date Introduction Labels on food products have a significant effect on a consumer’s decision to buy a product. The importance of food labels is to communicate the nutritional make up of a certain food product. The United States Food and Drug Administration begun to embark on a requirement of standardizing labels in packaged food products in 1994.the main purpose of this policy is to provide reliable and consistent nutritional foods information that should promote the choice of healthy food products by consumers. Cancer and heart diseases are the number one killers in America. These diseases are caused by factors relating to poor dietary practices. Cancer and heart diseases are related to high intake of fats and low intake of fibers. As a result of disastrous effects of cancer and heart diseases, the United States and Canadian governments have come up with recommendations that will help the public to make healthy dietary choices. The for instance, The US has passed a law compelling all manufacturers to label food products, summarizing the nutrient concentrates of a food product. Significance The research is to reveal the effects of nutritional labels have on the health of university and college students. Further, the research seeks to establish whether the labels have a notable impact among university and college students decision to purchase certain food products. The research aims at examining the frequency of usage of nutritional labels among college and university students. To eliminate the element of bias, the research aimed at assessing whether non label users are different from label users when it comes to knowledge on nutritional information, beliefs about diet diseases relationship as well as factors associated with non label users and label users’ attitudes towards nutritional labels. Problem Statement Many students have no control over what they take. The result of their ignorance is because in most cases the parents are the ones who set out the diet that the children will take. Additionally, some of the students are not unaware of the chronic diseases that they are exposing themselves to when they take unhealthy foods. Because most students are young, they do not recognize the long term effects poor dietary behavior. The present intake of foods high in fats, carbohydrates and proteins will have adverse effects on their health in future if the trend continues unabated. The environments that the students study in also have effects on the kinds of foods that the students take. The university and college administrations should take part in education students’ on healthy eating habits and lifestyle. Most students are influenced by peer pressure to eat certain kinds of food without thinking of their future health implications. The group behavior of students has been used to determine the beliefs that affect use of nutritional labels. The poor nutritional behavior does not affect the health of students in isolation but rather that of the entire global population. Studies have shown that cancer is caused by high intake of fiber while most heart related diseases are caused by high intake of fat. According to Mackison et al (2010), many consumers have been able to read the nutritional labels with limited positive response since most consumers either do not understand or disregard the nutritional labels on certain foods. For this reason, the food labels do not always affect the choices of food purchases. The expenditure on food products rather than the health implications affect the consumers’ decision to purchase certain kinds of food products. Hypothesis Statement If college students are sensitized on the importance of nutritional labels, the consumers will able to make healthy food choices and lifestyles which will be healthily beneficial in the long run. Literature Review Many articles have been published on the area of nutritional education. However, only a few of these articles have focused on the importance of nutritional labels on food products. In 2010, the Healthy People Magazine published guidelines on proper use of labels found in food products. Several researchers have also focused on the various factors leading to label usage behaviors. According to Rasberry, et al (2007), a study conducted in 1995 established that educational level and gender of the participants influence the behavior of reading labels. Another study also showed that gender affected the way college students and university students used nutritional labels. The study showed that male participants’ beliefs on the credibility of labels had a significant difference between non label users and label users. Recent studies place emphasis on examining the behaviors relevant in students’ personalities and knowledge attitudes. From a legal stand point, the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) emphasize the need to educate the public on the usage of nutritional labels to enhance increased knowledge of nutrition. Knowledge of consumed nutrients is directly related to behaviors of reading labels and positive attitudes of reading labels. Females for instance are more involved in reading nutritional labels than males. However, there is no one published article on broad assessment of college student’s beliefs, knowledge, behaviors of label reading and attitudes on diet related diseases (Rasberry et al, 2007). Smith et al (1999) asserts that many researchers have conducted nutritional research on adults but only a few have concentrated on college or university students. For this research, the American Journal of Health Education Journal issues were assessed. There were a total of nine articles on nutritional research. Among those nine research articles, none of them focused on nutritional label reading specifically. Most of the topics concentrated on the disorders associated with the binge eating habits. The articles in the American Journal of Health Education focused on the general nutritional eating behaviors without concentrating on behaviors on label reading. However, Mackison et al (2010) observe that most researchers have confirmed that consumers are concentrating on reading nutritional labels. The European Heart Network in 2003 claimed that most consumers were aware of the major causes of heart diseases was fat and as a result avoided fatty food products. Consumers in various parts of the world such as the United States, Canada and Australia, have demanded ease and standardized delivery of information on nutrition. Most consumers do not understand nutritional information on labels. The words used to describe nutrient components are not misunderstood by the consumers. The European Union has put forward a proposal on regulation of nutritional information provided by the manufacturers to the consumers. On March 20, 2000, the Nutrition Labeling Council together with the European Parliament agreed that they would launch mandatory food labeling on all manufactured food products. The proposal was aimed at increasing the consumer nutritional information awareness. The European Union has similarly made published proposals that government health practitioners should educate the consumers and the students about the importance of reading nutritional labels. In reality, many consumers normally look at their budgets before they buy certain kinds of foods. Many foods that are high in nutrition advantage are expensive and unaffordable to most consumers. The ability to purchase food products depend on the availability of money for the consumers as opposed to the knowledge on the labels. Research Design and Methods With permission from the Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects (IRBPHS), sixteen instructors teaching eighty eight classes of physical activity were used to help in giving out questionnaires to the students. The instructors were the representatives who visited every classroom to discuss questions in the questionnaires. The representatives were to assist the students in answering the questionnaires in addition to collecting and distributing questionnaires. The questionnaires contained questions on knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, nutritional label use, beliefs and demographic characteristics in relation to diet diseases. The questionnaires were supposed to take only eight minutes to answer. There were also informed consent forms that the students were supposed to answer. The student’s names were not needed in this research as the research was conducted in conditions of anonymity. By use of research design known as cross sectional design, a sample 1294 students from the University of Texas were used. Additional 88 students of the physical education class were selected. The reason for choosing the physical education class is because the course is a common course and every student is required to take this course. This type of the course was the best to capture all students in the university. The physical education course is taken in the first year of the university studies. For this reason, the research aimed to capture the fresh undergraduate population. Out of the 2756 students who participated in the survey, 1294 students were able to complete the survey. The population represented 47% response rate. The measurement that was used is a fifty seven survey instrument item known as the Colleagues and Marietta instruments, which had been adjusted in a prior research studies. The instrument was used to examine the attitudes, behaviors and knowledge of students with regard to nutritional information on labels. The adjusted instrument was divided into six sections that measured the beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors of association with diet diseases, demographic characteristics and supplementary use. The attitude question was on a scale of five questions. The first scale was strongly disagree to the last scale strongly disagree. The analysis of the study was done using descriptive statistics. Mean standard deviation and frequencies were used to measure beliefs, attitudes, label reading behavior, knowledge and demographics variables. The research made use of bivariate analyses through t tests. The tests were used to compare the gender groups and label use. Pearson square correlation was used to determine whether any relationship existed. The relationship between diet and diseases was formed on the analysis of three scales of items. The scale was taken from a sample of two thousand samples used in the survey. The open ended questions in the questionnaires were examined for repetition. The main repeated words were coded into looking for specific reasons, health reasons, feel no reason to read labels, weight control, already familiar with the labels on products purchased regularly, don’t care attitude, failure to trust or understand the label information and buy goods they want. The process of coding was done by two researches and any disagreements were settled in an agreement during the process. Important predictors of the survey were identified by use of regeression known as binary logistics. References Mackison, D. et al. (2010). Validity and Reliability Testing of a Short Questionnaire Developed to Assess Consumers’ Use, Understanding and Perception of Food Labels. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition .Volume 64 Rasberry, N. et al. (2007). Determinants of Nutrition Label Use among College Students. American Journal of Health Education Journal, (38) 2. Smith, C. (1999). Use of food labels and beliefs about diet-disease relationships among university students. Public Health Nutrition, (3) 2. Read More