Understanding barriers towards the use of food labels among Saudi female college students

Introduction: A food label is an important tool that provides nutritional information which influences consumers by promoting awareness on their diet and improving health status. This study aimed to assess nutrition knowledge level, food label usage, and the barriers that hinder the use of food labels among students in Health Colleges at the Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University (PNU). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among Health College students at PNU in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). A total of 572 participants were interviewed through a validated questionnaire on social demographic characteristics, nutrition knowledge level, food label use, and barriers that hinder food label use. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (version 21), with statistical significance set at p-value <0.05. Results: Only 27.4% of the participants stated that they always or usually use food labels when purchasing food products. Majority of the participants (59.4%) had moderate nutrition knowledge. Factors significantly associated to food label use were nutrition knowledge (R²=0.21), attitude towards health value of the products (R²=0.35), and taste (R²=-0.22). About 41.0% of the participants indicated that time constraint was the main barrier for not using food labels, followed by no interest (31.3%), no need (27.8%), and difficult to use (24.8%). Conclusion: This study found that food label use was low among the participants. Nutrition knowledge supported food label use while time constraint was the main barrier that hindered the use of food label among them. Raising students’ nutrition knowledge level through nutrition education programmes could promote food label use.