Influence of negative nutritional information on the buying behavior of university students / Carl Barry Sirau and Mohamad Razif

Under Product Labeling Law, the manufacturer is required to list the ingredients including nutritional properties of the products. These requirements are presumably carried out to inform the buyers of the ingredients. Negative nutrients (e.g: salt, preservatives, coloring, fat etc) are increasingly included in the label to provide more information and also to attract buyers to products and brands that have removed certain negative nutrients or have them in low quantity. This is due to the modern diet which consists of more carbohydrates, sugar, salt, fat, and calories. The alternative consumptions of more fast foods, we are vulnerable of getting obsessed and this leads to health related risks. The food labels should give the main ingredients, addictiveness, and provide a nutrient lists about the negative nutrients. This is essential because people, especially the university students prefer packaged food products in order to· save time because of their hectic academic schedule. Life expectancy has increase'and people want to lead an active and healthy lifestyle, and thus increase the need for nutritional information. The knowledge about nutritional information is essential to making better choices in terms of quality and quantity of the food products.100 respondents were chosen from the Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies (FSPPP) and the Faculty of Sport Science and Recreation (FSSR) in the Universiti of Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam Campus. This study enable us to know more about the students interest to know more about Negative Nutritional Information (NNI), and their usage in NNI is linked by the health and age factors that leads towards their buying preferences and decisions. In this study also, we do not found any strong relationship between the interest, usage, health condition factor, and gender with the students' preferences and decision in buying food products.