The degree of awareness of the native medical students regarding the food labeling through the prism of the official documents aimed to protect the consumer's health

Abstract

Introduction. The measures to inform the consumers about the food products are made by various official documents aimed to protect the consumer's health. For these reasons, is of interest the attitude and level of knowledge in this field of the native medical students as the future promoters of the healthy lifestyle. Aim of the study. Analysis of official documents on informing consumers about the nutritional value of foodstuff and assessing the degree of awareness of native medical students regarding food labeling, marketed in their marketing objectives. Materials and methods. The provisions of official documents regarding consumer’s information on the nutritional value of foodstuff were studied and analyzed. Through the questionnaire, developed by the author, a study was conducted within “Nicolae Testemițanu” SUMPh, applied to a sample of 350 native medical students from all courses, estimated by the classical standardized formula, according to age, year of study, gender. Results. The requirements of official documents regarding the information included in the nutrition statements on the labels of food products were analyzed, taking into account the need to protect the consumer's health, but also to promote harmless foods. As a result of applying the questionnaire, it was possible to use the standardized tool, which allowed to highlight the following items in the research groups: when purchasing food products, they are interested with a greater share of the information on labels from years 2 to 4 (41.6%- 46.2%) and according to gender, girls are more interested (girls- 41.9%, boys- 35.6%). The students, included in the age group 26-27 years, draw more attention to the presence of food additives (77.8%). The absolute majority (92.5%- 96.6%) of the students questioned from years 2 - 6 draw special attention to the validity terms of perishable foods, while their storage conditions are interested 79.6% -88, 5% of students from years 2 to 4. Depending on the gender, girls are more interested in comparison to boys, both the term of validity (94.6%; 89.0%) and the storage terms (83%; 79.5%). Conclusions. The national legislation on informing consumers about food contains various data useful to protect the health. The results of questionnaires indicate a growing awareness of the native medical students, starting with year 2 of the study, on the importance of becoming familiar with the health claims on food labels, which contributes to the further change of harmful habits, and in perspective- to the formation of a knowledge base and attitudes in order to promote a healthy lifestyle among the population.