The understanding, attitude and use of nutrition label among consumers (China)

The aim of this study was to investigate the understanding, attitude and use of nutrition label among consumers in china.

A cross-sectional survey with a self-structured questionnaire was conducted among 1153 consumers, who were recruited from different supermarkets during March to May 2014 in Wuhu city of china.

The result shows that the subjective understanding of nutrition labels was moderate (62.8% of respondents) but the objective understanding was varied. The attitudes toward nutrition label was positive in participates who had a higher confidence and satisfaction of nutrition label. 59.2% of the respondents indicated 'sometimes' and 28.7% 'always' reading nutrition label. The most frequently reading of nutrition label food was milk (57.5%), followed by infant food (33.3%), and nutrient was protein 51.5%, vitamin (49.8%) and fat (29.4%). None of demographic characteristics was associated with the understanding, attitude and use of nutrition label except education.

Participates of our study had a moderate understanding, positive attitude and higher frequent using nutrition label. Although the code of nutrition label became mandatory, more additional strategies for nutrition label are still needed, so as to improve consumers' the cognition of nutrition label.