College Students’ Stage of Change for Knowledge of the Nutrition Facts Label

Abstract

The Stages of Change Model describes how people progress through a series of five stages (precontemplation, contemplation, decision, action, and maintenance); increasing action to change behavior is represented by movement to a higher stage. Interventions based on a persons’ stage of change have the potential to facilitate positive behavioral change. In a non-experimental survey design a stage of change algorithm was used to determine college students’ stage of change with regards to nutrition label use. Students were classified into the five stages as follows: precontemplation stage if they had never used nutrition label information and had not thought about using it within the past month, contemplation stage if they had never used nutrition label information but had thought about using it in the past month, but not confident they would use nutrition label information in the next month, decision stage if they had never used nutrition label information but had thought about using it in the past month, and fairly confident they would use it in the next month, action stage if they had used nutrition label information for six months or less and maintenance stage if they had used nutrition label information for the past seven months or more. A 27 item knowledge test (Kuder-Richardson 20=.63) was developed to assess current nutrition labeling knowledge. Three-hundred forty mid-west university students (69% female) completed the knowledge test, 319 answered all questions that were pan of the algorithm. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the sample and to identify nutrition labeling behavior. A t-test was performed to compare knowledge scores of female and male students. A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to examine the relationship between the students’ knowledge score and stage of change. The algorithm classified the majority of the students in the action or maintenance stages (68%) while the rest of the students (32%) were in the lower stages, precontemplation, contemplation and decision. A chi square test of independence of effects revealed that males and females were classified into different stages of change from one another not by chance (x2(4) =25.68, p<.000l). Fewer females than males were classified in the precontemplation and contemplation stages (20.7% vs. 44.2%, p<.001). The mean knowledge score (n=340) was 18.2±3.7 (65% correct). Females had higher knowledge scores than males (18.6 vs. 17.6, <.05). There was a positive but weak correlation between the stage of change and knowledge test score (r=.24, p<0001). These data suggest that many college students are using the nutrition label. Therefore, action oriented nutrition labeling education programs would be most appropriate when dealing with college students, particularly females, as action oriented programs are most useful for those falling into the higher stages.