The Effect of Front-of-Package Traffic Light (FoPTL) Nutrition Label Design on the Acceptability and Understanding of Nutrition Labels for Hypertension Patients

Abstract

The practice of reading nutrition labels and understanding the information still remains low in Indonesia, especially among hypertensive patients. Yet, Front-of-Package Traffic Light (FoP-TL) labels can be well received by the community compared to information labels that display nutritional values. Hypertension sufferers need to understand such FoP-TL labels in order to be aware of their sodium consumption and not exceed recommended limits. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of nutrition label designs on acceptance and understanding among hypertensive patients. The quasi-experimental study design was applied over a period of three weeks, with a control group containing 11subjects (nutritional value information labels) and an intervention group comprising 10 subjects (FoP-TL labels) selected by purposive sampling. The collection of primary data at the beginning of the study included data on the subjects’ characteristics (age, education, income, weight, height, BMI and blood pressure), knowledge of nutrition and health, their behavior relating to the reading of nutritional value information labels, and their understanding of nutrition labels and perceptions of their attractiveness. In the first week, the subjects were given a pre-test on nutrition labels with the help of a dummy, aimed at determining their understanding of nutritional value information labels. During the second week, education was provided in the form of different booklets and dummies according to each group, while in the third week a post-test was administered to measure the effects of the nutrition labels received by both groups. The results showed significant differences in terms of the increase in understanding between the control and intervention groups (22.15 points in the control group and 34.3 points in the intervention group), while there were also differences in the average acceptability scores for both groups (47.7 points in the control group and 55.7 points in the intervention group. FoP-TL labels can thus be used to understand what constitutes good nutrition labels for use with hypertensive patients.