How Well Do Consumers Understand Percentage Daily Value on Food Labels?

In 1994, new food labels were introduced with a focus on dietary fat and other nutrients associated with chronic diseases.These food labels were designed to help consumers make healthier food choices and thereby reduce the incidence of chronic disorders and diseases, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.Studies suggest that label use has risen significantly since introduction of the new formats ~ and that label use is associated with lower fat intake 2.3.However, research to date does not clarify whether using food labels (1) results in healthier food choices, (2) serves as a marker for attitudes, knowledge and beliefs associated with making healthy diets, (3) is a behavioral correlate of healthy diet choices, or (4) some combination of the above.For food labels to direcdy influence dietary intake, it is axiomatic that they must be understood by the consumer.Therefore, we sought to determine whether food label comprehension was associated with dietary intake.We focused on consumer interpretation of percentage daily value (%DV), which is a new reference measure developed help consumers evaluate a product in context of their total daily consumption.Specifically, we examined whether consumers understand %DV for fat and can use the label information to determine whether a food is low, medium or high in fat.In addition, we examined whether there was an association between label comprehension and dietary fat intake.