ABSTRACT

This work investigated the consumer awareness, attitudes and practices related to health and diet issues in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area, Enugu State. A total of 400 respondents were selected using simple random sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on demographic and socio-economic characteristics knowledge, attitude and practice of respondents on health and diet issues.  The result showed that majority (57.5%) of the respondents were male while 42.5% were female. The age range were between 18-25 (26.3%) and 26-30 (17%) years. It was observed that 46.6% of the respondents were single while 44.6%  were married. Majority were Christians (73.9%) and Igbos (76.0%). The family size of the respondents were mainly 1-3 (46.6%), 4-5 (25.5%) and 6-7 (18%).  They were mostly farmer (39%) and civil servant (21.2%). Many (44.0%) of the respondents had secondary education, 16.8% had primary education, 13.0% had tertiary education and 26.0% had no formal education. Most of the respondents received a monthly income of N10000-20000 (30.8%) and N21000-30000 (18.5%).  More than half (53.8%) of the respondents had fair knowledge, 31.0% had poor knowledge and 15.2% had good knowledge of health and diet issues. It was revealed that (48.5%) of the respondents had fair attitude towards health and diet issues, 35.5% had good attitude towards health and diet issues. Many (73.0%) of the respondents have heard about dietary supplements. Score (45.8%) of the respondents  heard about dietary supplement through radio/television, 5.3% heard from hospitals/clinics and nutrition education program. It was revealed that 52.0% of the respondent has taken dietary supplements whereas 48.0% of them have not. Also, many (69.5%) of the respondents examined expiry dates of food items before they bought them. Only few of the respondents (5.3%) always used nutrition facts when purchasing food products. Forty-one percent of the respondents did not check nutritional label at all because they are difficult to use and understand, 46.5% of the respondents find it hard to read and understand nutritional facts and 37.5% had difficulty to see the tiny print of nutritional facts. A good (46.3%) of the respondents did not buy low fat or fat free food regularly but 43.2% of them bought low fat or fat free foods regularly. Majority (44.5%) of the respondents were currently reducing their salt or sodium intake while 40.7% were not. A significant (P=0.02) association existed between respondents nutrition knowledge and purchase of low fat foods. Nutrition knowledge was positively related with  identification of sodium inscription (i.e. the quality of sodium) on food products at a p–value of 0.04. Low utilization of nutrition labels was observed amongst the respondents.