JOURNAL OF FOOD AND NUTRITION RESEARCH, cilt.59, sa.3, ss.263-270, 2021 (SCI-Expanded)
Nutrition labelling is a population-based approach for facilitating health-compatible nutrition choices through the provision of food nutrient content information to consumers. The Healthy Diet Indicator (HDI-2015), which is based on adherence to World Health Organization's (WHO) nutrition guideline is used as a priori measure of diet quality. This study aimed to examine the association between nutrition label reading and HDI-2015 in young adults. In this study, 106 adults aged 19-44 years were recruited. HDI-2015 and three-day food records were used to determine diet quality indices. In this study, 61.3 % of the participants read nutrition labels, and nutrition label readers had a greater fruits and vegetables as well as fibre and potassium intake. In addition, nutrition label readers had a higher HDI-2015 mean score than non-readers, and 56.9 % of nutrition label readers had moderate adherence to HDI-2015, while 58.5 % of non-readers had low adherence. The study results demonstrated the relationship between reading nutrition labels and dietary quality, and that nutrition label readers tended to eat healthier than non-readers. Therefore, nutrition labels are an invaluable motivational tool to achieve behavioural changes that can lead to improved health outcomes in combatting obesity and other non-chronic nutritional diseases.