Nutrition education positively influenced the use of food labels on pre-packaged foods and purchase decision among young people in Obafemi Awolowo University Community, Nigeria

Rate at which young people consume Pre-Packaged Food (PPF) products is on the increase in Obafemi Awolowo University Community, Nigeria. This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of nutrition education on the use of food labels on PPF and purchase decision among young people in the Community. Data were collected using questionnaire before and after intervention. Two thousand students participated in the nutrition education intervention programme, while only 10% of the participants were interviewed before and after the programme. Information on demographic characteristics, awareness and use of Pre-Packaged Food Labels (PPFL) was obtained. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Data showed that mean age of the participants was 22.12±2.9years and 64.5% were female. Majority (80.0%) were aware of PPFL while 27% were rated high in awareness of the content of PPFL. Specifically 36.9% read nutrition information on the label and vitamins and minerals were the most sought information (31.0%) while sodium was the least (4.0%). More than half indicated that they read labels before purchase of PPF and 47.5% claimed PPFL influenced their purchase decision. Nutrition information on the label ranked second after price among the determinants to purchase a PPF product. There was no significant relationship between level of awareness and purchase decision before the nutrition education intervention (p=0.208) while significant relationship existed after intervention (p=0.003). After the intervention, females were four times more likely to use food labels in purchase decision than males (OR =4.34, 95% CI (0.62-2.75), likewise, older participants were thrice more likely to use food labels in purchase decision (OR = 3.05, 95% CI = 1.49 2.64) than the younger ones. Nutrition education positively influenced the use of PPFL on purchase decision of PPF products in the University community.