Abstract
A higher sugar intake in infancy might result in a predisposition to a higher sugar intake in later childhood. In Taiwan, many commercial infant and toddler foods with nutrition claims have high sugar content. This study explored the influence of mothers’ knowledge and attitudes on their purchase intention for infant food with nutrition claims. This study was a cross-sectional survey. An online survey was distributed to 940 mothers who had a child aged between 4 months and 3 years; 40% of mothers tend to misunderstand that “no added sugar” (NAS) indicates no sugar or less sugar content and, thus, that NAS infant cereal is healthy. Approximately 50–70% of mothers believe that NAS infant cereal is more natural, healthier, and contains less sugar. Attitude toward the NAS claim was found to be a mediating variable between sugar-related knowledge and purchase intention. The lower the level of sugar-related knowledge was, the more positive the attitude toward NAS infant cereal and the higher the purchase intention for NAS infant cereal were. In the future, regulation of no added sugar is needed to avoid the misleading information and mothers’ sugar-related knowledge need to be improved through nutrition education.
Highlights
Overweight and obesity can increase the risk of many health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers [1,2,3]
Of the 1535 participants who answered the online questionnaires, 940 were considered eligible and 595 were excluded because they had no experience of using infant cereal, no children aged 4 months to
The majority (70.7%) of the participants were ≥31 years old. Most of those who completed the questionnaire were educated at university level or above (92.6%) and did not have a medical background (81.9%)
Summary
Overweight and obesity can increase the risk of many health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers [1,2,3]. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that in 2015, the number of overweight children under the age of 5 was estimated to be more than 42 million globally, and almost half of all overweight children under 5 years old live in Asia [4]. Compared with the 2015 data of the World Obesity Federation, the overweight rates of children in Taiwan were the highest in. High sugar intake is of concern because of its association with poor dietary quality and obesity [6]. The American Heart Association indicated that both adults and children weight gains over the past 30 years were related to increased sugar intake [7]. Several studies have confirmed that children who consume more sugar have a higher obesity rate than those who consume less sugar [8,9,10]
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