Abstract
Purpose : We studied the influence of pregnancy and childrearing on how women check the food labels and their level of awareness regarding food additives to determine an effective method to educate mothers, the main people responsible for the health of children, on food, and in particular, choosing food products. Subjects : We gave a series of questionnaires, first to pregnant women, and then to those who answered the first questionnaire who gave birth and were raising their children. We received responses from 366 women (43.7%), and studied those of 327 (89.3%) respondents who were pregnant with their first child at the time of the first survey.
Methods: We asked the mothers to fill out a questionnaire consisting of 39 items including 17 related to food additives. The questionnaires were distributed to the pregnant mothers in pre-birthchild care classes, and were returned by mail.
The data was compiled and analyzed statistically with the SPSS package; the analysis followed the mothers from pregnancy to childrearing by combining data from both periods and integrating the data. We analyzed the factors involving the relationship between awareness and behavior with items over both periods (pregnancy and childrearing) using the powerful varimax rotation. We then confirmed the correlative structure of the main factor during childrearing of “checking the food label” using analysis of covariant structures.
Results: The correlation between all items compared during pregnancy and during childrearing was extremely strong. The results of the factor rotation analysis found one factor “items purchased”, common to both periods, but the second and third factors differed. The analysis of covariant structures showed that “checking the label” was influenced by “concerned about it”, and that “concerned about it“ was influenced by “want to know more details ”. Conclusion : While there was a strong interest in food additives, and while those who were concerned did show a high level of label checking, only about half of all mothers studied actually checked food labels. The findings showed that it is important to strengthen concern about food by providing mothers with information concerning food additives to encourage checking food labels when shopping.
