Investigation of the attitudes and behavi̇ors of individuals about food label examinition and the effect of label information on food selection

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how much label information is cared for by consumers and how food products affect buying behavior. 220 individuals between 20 and 60 years of age were enrolled in the study of the Nutrition and Dietetic Polyclinic of Vera Medical Center in Istanbul. With in the scope of the study, the frequency of reading the food labels, the general dissatisfaction with the food labels, the attitudes of the healthy food and food label, the reasons for not using the label information were evaluated and a questionnaire was applied with the face–to-face interview technique to determine whether the demographic characteristics were affected by these variables. The data obtained from the individuals were evaluated with SPSS 23.0 program. In the analysis of the data, frequency distribution, Mann Whitney U and Kruskall Wallis tests were used. 80% of the participants were female and 20% were male. According to marital status, 55.5% of the individuals were married, 41.8% were single, and 2.7% were divorced. According to their educational status, the participants were working with 60.9%; 39.1% did not work. A statistically significant difference was found between gender and label reading frequency (p <0.05). Participants with gender were more likely to read labels than women. There was a statistically significant difference between marital status and label reading frequency (p <0.05). According to this, there was no statistically significant difference between marital status and married and unmarried individuals. marital status of married and unmarried individuals read more labels than divorced individuals have been seen. The level of education and label reading frequency was compared and no statistically significant difference was found between them (p> 0.05). There was a statistically significant difference between production date and education level (p <0.05). Primary school graduates are more likely to read more than middle school, high school, undergraduate and graduate students. There was no significant difference between primary and secondary education levels (p> 0.05). At the time when labeling is mandatory, consumers should be trained on the substances that are mandatory on the label.