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Schoolchildren's abilities to frame, understand and successfully manipulate food label information: enabling consumer choice through education
Author(s) -
Stuart Stephen A.,
Schröder Monika J.A.,
Bower John A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
international journal of consumer studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 1470-6423
DOI - 10.1046/j.1470-6431.2003.30825.x
Subject(s) - comprehension , competence (human resources) , dimension (graph theory) , food choice , psychology , food labelling , legislation , conceptual framework , marketing , social psychology , computer science , business , medicine , sociology , political science , mathematics , labelling , social science , criminology , pathology , pure mathematics , law , programming language
At a time when the major dialogue in food labelling is directed towards the volume and type of information presented, it is important to understand whether adolescents leaving education have the abilities to comprehend and use the current label as they represent the next generation of consumers. Legislation has been created to protect consumers and to enable them to make informed food choices. Food labels carry a significant volume of mandatory and voluntary information, designed to fulfil a variety of commercial and consumer functions. For these laws to be effective at an individual level, it is important that information is framed correctly, and that people can manipulate the data in an accurate and meaningful manner. In order to optimise food label information consumers require some competence across three different conceptual dimensions: maths, English comprehension, and health and nutrition. Most individuals acquire such skills at school. The pilot research that this paper describes investigates changes in the abilities to frame, comprehend and manipulate label information, of 19 schoolchildren at one secondary school in Scotland. The main research, to be conducted in 2003, will include over a thousand children from another seven Scottish schools. Statistical analysis indicates that there is a significant improvement in the dimensions of both maths and English comprehension between levels S1 and S5, whilst the health and nutrition dimension does not show such significance. Each dimension has been measured against attitudes towards the use of labels in shopping and cooking to determine if the differences between those who use labels and those who do not are significant The research also proposes a new method of presenting nutrition information to make it more meaningful to individuals across a wide spectrum of competence by reducing the number of conceptual components required to comprehend it.