ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THE NUTRITION VALUE INFORMATION LABEL STUDENTS OF ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS FACULTY IN MUHAMMADIYAH

Abstract

Concern  for  health  and  nutrition  of  consumers  is  increasing.  Information  on  nutrition  facts  on food  labels  becomes  one  of  the  focuses  of  consumer  attention  in  food  products.  This  is  often associated  with  prevention  of  over  nutrition  or  monitoring  of  nutritional  status  and  health related non communicable diseases such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. The purpose of this study was to determine the ability to understand nutrition label on college students. This was an observational study. The respondents were 74 students of Faculty of  Economic  and  Business,  Universitas  Muhammadiyah  Surakarta,  which  were  chosen  using random  sampling  technique  with  the  inclusion  criteria  were  not  on a  diet  and  not  smoking. Meanwhile,  the  exclusion  criteria  were  vegetarian, athlete had  high  activity  and  had  chronic disease.    Ability  to  understand  label  data  were  measured  using  questionnaire.  Most  of  the students  belong  to  age  group  of  19  years  (58,10%)  and  female  gender  category  (71,6%).  Most students  (59,4%)    had  inability  to  understand  nutrition  label.  Questions  on  the  percentage  of nutritional adequacy rates on nutritional value information, the understanding of % daily value (AKG)  on food packaging,  amount  of  nutrient  when  consuming  one  package  and  comparing products  that  has less carbohydrate  content  were  the  most  missed  questions  answered  by respondents.  While  the  question  which  was  correctly  answered  by  respondents  was  the  total amount  of  carbohydrates  on  the  packaging  (87,8%).  The  average  ability  to  understand  label score  was  54,8 with standard  deviation  14,06.  The  results  showed  that  ability  of  students  to understand nutrition labels was still low. It possible because there was another factors like price, taste  and  knowledge  of  the  product  that  affected  them  when  purchased  food.  It  is  suggested  to give  nutrition  facts  education  in  purchasing  food  products  to the  students and  develop  simpler but meaningful nutrition labeling to help consumers choosing healthier products.