A Survey on Cognitive Ability and Application of Food Nutrition Labels of Middle School Students in Beijing, China in 2020

Abstract

In recent years, the health status of middle school students is not optimistic in Beijing, China. To understand the status quo and deficiencies of the cognition and application about food nutrition labels in middle school students in Beijing, and to explore the positive effects and weak links of food nutrition labels on healthy diet and scientific weight loss guidance for students, literature review, two-way questionnaire survey, data analysis and practical exploration methods were adopted to study the selected 405 students in terms of cognition, attitude, application and improvement suggestions of nutrition labels. The awareness rate of nutrition labels and nutrition ingredient list was only 49% and 66% respectively in the surveyed students. 94% of the students have the willing to learn about nutrition labels. 83% of students have confidence in the content of nutrition labels, but most them thought that the form and content of nutrition labels need to be optimized and improved, and emphasis should be placed on key information, meanwhile explanatory and warning information should be added. Label checking rate was 55%. Application rate was only 36%. The awareness of diet management based on nutrition labels was weak. There were statistically significant differences in nutrition knowledge, confidence of nutrition labels and health level among the surveyed students of different ages. The surveyed students were lacking of cognition and application on nutrition labels, and nutrition-related knowledge need to be popularized through multi-approach. Publicity and guidance should be strengthened, and health awareness should be raised. The application and decision of nutrition labels were affected by many factors. Attitude and attention play a relatively large role in application and benefit of nutrition labels. Nutrition labels with comprehensive use of colors, fonts, graphics and other presentation modes and prominent key information were more attractive to students. The establishment of food nutrition label one-hand APP effectively promoted the students to learn and use nutrition labels, and provided a simple and feasible solution for the realization of nutrition labels to guide the healthy diet and scientific weight loss for students.