Understanding Vietnamese Urban Consumers' Nutrition Label Use, Health Concerns, and Consumption of Food and Beverages with Added Sugars.

Duc Nguyen-Anh,Di Zeng,Wendy J Umberger

doi:10.3390/nu12113335

Duc Nguyen-Anh, Di Zeng + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12113335

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Abstract

Vietnam is experiencing a diet and nutrition transition. Increasing consumption of food and beverages with added sugars is a significant public health concern. Policies and interventions, such as mandatory nutrition labelling, are being considered to improve consumers’ awareness and understanding of diet and health implications of added sugars in food and beverages. The effectiveness of various policy approaches relies on an improved understanding of the interrelationships between urban Vietnamese consumers’ health concerns, nutrition label use, and intake of sugars. We empirically disentangle these relationships for urban Vietnamese households using novel intra-household data covering 4047 adults and 737 adolescents from 1590 households in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The data are from comprehensive household surveys and 24-hour food diaries. Simultaneous equation regression models are estimated using three-stage least squares (3SLS) to account for possible endogeneity. Nutrition label use is significantly associated with a lower share of calories from foods and beverages with added sugars. These findings suggest that nutrition labelling programs may be an effective policy mechanism to reduce the negative health implications of increasing availability and consumption of food and beverages with added sugars in urban Vietnam.

Highlights

Diet transition resulting in increasing consumption of highly processed non-traditional foods, and more sedentary lifestyles are all contributing to the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer, in emerging and developing economies across the Southeast Asia region [1,2,3,4,5]
This study explores the interrelationships between nutrition label use, health concerns related to sugar consumption, and the share of caloric intake from food and beverages with added sugars among adults and adolescents in urban Vietnam
The analysis for adolescents is especially interesting, given that adolescents may be at higher risk of overconsumption of added sugars than adults

Summary

Introduction

Diet transition resulting in increasing consumption of highly processed non-traditional foods, and more sedentary lifestyles are all contributing to the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer, in emerging and developing economies across the Southeast Asia region [1,2,3,4,5]. One particular concern resulting from the diet transition occurring in many countries is increasing consumption of non-traditional foods and beverages with added sugars [6,7,8,9]. Higher consumption of foods and beverages with added sugars [10] has been shown to be associated with excess energy intake and poorer diet quality [11,12], resulting in a heightened risk of NCDs, overweight and obesity, and type II diabetes [13,14].

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