Food labeling is important to the consumer and the manufacturers. The quality of the food is particularly important to the customers who are cognizant of the need to be more aware of the content and the nutrients in their foods. The views of food and food content are important as they appear on the labels and help consumers to make accurate choices on the foods they wish to consume. Food and food content changes rapidly over time and the consumers recognize that the content that is present in particular food today may be absent from the product tomorrow. The following research will look at students’ awareness of nutrition, understanding food labelling, and keeping food safe. Many students are unaware of the benefits of food labelling, but the growing body of literature has opened the way to creating a greater understanding of the importance of food labelling in the society. The material for the research came from scholarly libraries, online databases, and Google Scholar which proved to be quite useful. The researcher used the key terms: food labelling and students to garner the data.
Assessing students’ awareness of nutrition information
In addition, the Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged that the lack of labels on products has an impact on the obesity rate in the world. In some cases, the goods are labeled, and yet some persons for not read the label on their products. This also impacts the level of and the severity of obesity epidemic (Phillipson 2005: 1). The truth is that the Food and Drug Administration understands that “food labeling as a vehicle for dietary messages” (Phillipson 2005: 1). As a result, the organization has put in place “stringent guidelines to maintain the integrity of the food label” (Phillipson 2005: 1). Labels on products can save the government over 26 billion in health care cost (Borra 2006: 2) and this will help to reduce the number of deaths annually because the labeling allows persons to become informed about the ingredients.
Many students fall victim of the high calorie diet and are unaware of the value of the nutritional labels. As such, many organizations have improved the process of labelling. The labeling of food changes rapidly over time, and as such the food industries have made it mandatory that foods that are pre-packaged carries the nutritional information regarding the level of “energy (calories), fat content, protein, amount of sugar, amount of salt and sodium” (Borra 2006 p: 1) among other information. The food labels also serve as important marketing tools boost consumer confidence and enhance advertising sales and give consumers information on the date that products expires. Poor diet has been a cause for concern in the public health organization and the younger population. Roberto et al suggests that labeling of goods serve to improve the diets of the consumer (Roberto et al 2010: 93) and thereby reduce the number of obese patients in the world. In addition, this information will allow students to develop a sense of awareness for the value of being educated on food labelling.
The younger generation is the future of tomorrow and therefore it is important that public health facilities make the effort to get students to understand the value of food labelling. Food labelling offers a number of positive outcomes and students can benefit from these values and further impart it to their families and peers. Countries, such as Greece have implemented measures that affect the use of nutritional food label which reveal that there is an econometric approach that helps to enhance the nutrition knowledge and an endogenous variable (Drichoutis 2004: 1). This process helps the students to estimate and understand the models based on the degree of general use of the labels and the use of information on the content of the nutrient (Drichoutis 2004: 1). Roberto and Khandur argues that the USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines has advised students and the wider population that it is important to control the total amount of caloric intake and decrease the amount of saturated fat, sodium, cholesterol, trans fat, and additional sugar in the diet (Roberto & Khandur 2014: 2) as this can lead to serious health challenges.
Government and health professionals who provide accurate and clear nutritional information through the use of food labels help students to follow the specific guidelines about staying healthy. In addition, these nutrition labels that come on food packaging allow customers to make the best choice when purchasing goods and in turn influence purchasing behaviors. Campos suggests that the labeling of products in 2007 remains as a voluntary process in the European Union except in health claims (Campos 2010). The lack of food labels have been associated with the prevalence in obesity in the world as Campos cites that “over 1.6 billion adults are overweight and over 400 million are obese” (Campos 2010: 1). As a result the UAE has taken strides to present nutritional labeling as an integral part of providing the consumers with information is necessary for making informed and healthier food choices (Washi 2012). These measures will clearly help students to understand the value of food labelling.
Since the start of 2002, a number of groups have increased the discussion on the use of food labeling to improve the awareness in health risks. Grunert and Wills point out that “the distinction between labelling the front and back of packages” (Grunert & Wills 2007: 386) will help to determine how much attention persons give to the nutritional facts on the labels. Storcksdieck et al reiterates the cause for concern in the lack of use of labels as the authors note the interesting figures of more than 85% of the total of 37 000 products contain back-of-pack (BOP) nutritional labels and information that relates to the product labelling in Ireland and Slovenia (Storcksdieck 2010). Most of the European countries in the study had labels on the back of the products. The breakfast cereals contained the largest amount of information as the products are most widely used by consumers.
Food labels also help students to become aware of keeping food safe. Studies show that pre-packaged foods carry illnesses of microbial origin that can cause major health problems that are associated with pre-packaged foods (Khairuzzaman et al 2014). But allowing persons to become aware of important elements such as expiry dates on pre-packaged foods will greatly reduce the number of illnesses. In Bangladesh, over 30 million people suffer from food-borne illnesses annually (Khairuzzaman et al 2014). But, these diseases can be prevented if persons make a conscious effort to understand the information that is carried on food labels.
Canadian health organizations are promoting the safe handling of foods. Keeping clean and handling food properly will help to reduce the number of health problems. In one Canadian study, it was revealed that food safety concerns were great among the population and at least 15% of the respondents were cognizant of the contamination of food from handling (Khairuzzaman et al 2014). Based on these concerns, one would expect that students are also aware of the dangers associated with poor handling of food. Canadians health officials are among the vast number of health officials that have taken steps to educate students and the wider population on the benefits of proper food handling, but the increase in food – borne diseases supports the research findings of Khairuzzaman et al. that “more detailed labels on food (23–34%)” (Khairuzzaman et al 2014: 2) is necessary for increasing the knowledge of these dangers.
Conclusion
The use of food labelling is important to the health industry as it helps persons to make informed decisions on the nutritional factors that each product contains. With the increase in the number of health related issues and the increase in the number of obesity cases, there is a need for an increase in the use of food labelling that will force consumers to take note. Many countries use labels on their products, but the position of the labels and the amount of information can be time consuming and consumers will not pay close attention to the values of food labelling. The labels on food will help to keep foods safe and in turn keep the consumers safe. Aside from the nutritional value labels, food labels provide consumers with valuable information on the expiry date of the product. Business owners also benefit from these labels as they will not be left with expired goods that no one wants to purchase.
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