Food Choice Behaviour of Chinese Consumers in Shenyang, Liaoning Province ()
ABSTRACT
The aim of the study
was to investigate consumers’ use of nutrition claims and to determine the food
choice behaviour of Chinese consumers based on the nutrient content of packaged
foods. A cross-sectional descriptive research approach was followed. Combined
stratified and random sampling methods were used to select 400 adult literate
consumers involved in packaged food purchases from international chain
supermarkets and other popular shops in Shenyang in Liaoning Province,
North-East of China. Data were collected with questionnaires and analysed with
both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicated that none of
the respondents could interpret “salt free”, only 6.0% understood “reduced
sugar” and 70% were sceptical about such claims. A total of 53.8% and 64.4% of
the respondents neither understood the term or knew their RDA respectively,
even though familiarity with these had implication for food consumption.
Respondents’ use of information on calorie (Mean = 3.003, Std. Dev. = 1.248),
sugar (Mean = 3.151, Std. Dev. = 1.175) and fat (Mean = 3.175, Std. Dev. =
1.202) content affected their food choices “sometimes” while salt content
“rarely” (Mean = 2.803, Std. Dev. = 1.193) did. While the highest level
education showed no significance, health status was significantly and
negatively correlated with low-calorie (r = ?0.094, p < 0.01) and low-salt
(r = ?0.083, p < 0.05) food choices. Taste influenced the choice of
biscuits/cookies, which normally had high amount of fat, sugar and/or salt. The
findings suggested a low nutrition labelling awareness even though majority of
the respondents were well educated. Misconception and scepticism about label
claims and value placed on taste could lead to over consumption of the negative
nutrients from packaged foods. Consumer education and enforcement of claims on
calorie, fat, sugar and salt are emphasized.
Share and Cite:
MacArthur, R. , Wang, Y. and Feng, X. (2015) Food Choice Behaviour of Chinese Consumers in Shenyang, Liaoning Province.
Modern Economy,
6, 937-947. doi:
10.4236/me.2015.69088.
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