AWARENESS AND CHECKING OF VITAMIN A LOGO ON FOOD LABELS AMONG POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, OYO STATE

Abstract

Vitamin A deficiency is a major public health problem in Nigeria. It dramatically increases morbidity from several diseases. Few studies have documented the awareness and checking of vitamin A Logo on food labels among postgraduate students who are major stakeholders in the uptake of vitamin A in Nigeria. This study therefore assessed the awareness and checking of vitamin A logo on food labels among postgraduate students of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The study was a cross-sectional survey. A total of 453 postgraduate students were selected using the stratified random sampling technique from the list of residents in the three postgraduate halls in the university. A validated semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain data. Descriptive statistics and chi-square were used to analyze the data. The respondents consisted of 58.5% females and 41.5% males with an overall mean age of 30.2±5.9 years. Eighty-eight percent had heard about vitamin A fortified food while 72.8% had heard about mandatory fortification of foods with vitamin A. Respondents from the faculties of Education (100%), sciences (92.9%), Art (83.5%), the Social sciences (82.9%) and Law (33.3%) were aware of vitamin A fortified food. Respondents' major sources of information about vitamin A fortified food were television (65.8%), radio (40.6%), print media (21.6 %) and friends (10,4%). Sixty-five percent of the respondents named the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) as the organization that promotes checking of vitamin A logo on food labels. Foods reported to be fortified with vitamin A included sugar (25.4%), flour (21.2%), vegetable oil (18.5%) and semolina (11.0%). Two hundred and eighty-two (62.3%) of respondents could identify a vitamin A logo while 62.0% checked for this Logo before purchasing some foods. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents checked for food labels before purchasing some foods. The two main reasons given for checking food labels were to see if it was fortified (56.1%) and to check nutrition information (15.6%). Food items containing fortified vitamin A used by the respondents in the month preceding survey included vegetable oil (24.7%), sugar (21.6%). semolina (13.9%) and

flour (13.0%). The reason given for consuming vitamin A fortified food were to maintain good sight (71.9%), nourishment (12.3%) and good health (8.8%). Eighty-eight percent of males and 87.9% of the females were aware of vitamin A fortified food. More respondents (62.4%) within the 20-29 years age group checked for vitamin A logo before purchasing food items compared with 30.1% within 30-39 years age group and 7.5% of those age 40 years and above (p>0.05). Awareness of vitamin A fortified foods was high among the postgraduate students. However, this did not translate to a high prevalence of the practice of checking for its logo when purchasing food items. Health education strategies such as public enlightenment and social marketing are needed to facilitate the adoption of checking for vitamin A logo when purchasing food items among the respondents.