Shari-Fa Harrigan Bio 1010 April 25,2019

ePortfofolio Assignment

The scientific article that I choose to peer review is titled “Consumers’ Views and Use of

Labels on Food Items Sold in Bulawayo Urban Province, Zimbabwe”, the article was written by

Ncube, T, Makurunje S and S Dube. During the process of choosing an article, this particular one

stood out to me the most, because it never occurred to me how much influence a food label may

or may not have on some people. The findings of this research article were that most people do

not use food labels because often times they are not familiar with the nutrition facts. The

consumers had a hard time understanding the information on the food label due to education

circumstances, some respondents were illiterate, in this case people who reside in the rural area

of Zimbabwe receive groceries from their neighbor, which resulted in the consumer not having

to worry about the food label.

The hypothesis formed for this article is intended to investigate how consumers in

Bulawayo Urban Province Zimbabwe view and use labels on packaged food. 75 individuals were

randomly selected during different times of the day, to accommodate those who were employed

and unemployed. The ages for this study ranged from 18-69 years old, 45 being females and 30

males. The respondents were interviewed face to face, and the data was collected over six

months. During the interview process, out of the 75 people, 11 females and 8 males had special

health needs. Some of the health issues included hypertension, diabetes, pregnancy and religious

or ethical beliefs which limited them from this study.

The questions from the interview was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential

statistics, which are both graphs used to show the data that was collected. The questions that

were asked to conduct this survey was based off their awareness of label information, frequency

of label use and reasons for checking labels as far as trustworthiness. For example, in figure 2 on
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page 6 the graph displays how frequent consumers look at label elements such as ingredients,

date mark, price, NIP (Non-nutritional panel) and the weight when buying food. The results

show that only 37% of people used the ingredients list occasionally and 10% of the respondents

never used the label, while only 23% use it most of the time.

From my understanding after looking at the graph, most consumers look at the

importance of the ingredients rather than the nutrition facts, while others neither is important, or

food labels are not something they take into consideration. In figure 1, the graph shows that price

has a big impact for most consumers. In the article, the authors gathered information from

another survey that was conducted in the United States (Ncube, Makurunje & Dube 2017). The

survey showed that majority of consumers look at the quality rather than the quantity and they

are willing to pay a higher price for whatever benefits their health. For some people, the latter is

true, focusing in on the prices to figure out which is cheaper. In my experience before reading

this article as a generic brand consumer, often times I do not look at labels. As a college student,

it is more about the price rather than nutrition facts.

While reading this research article, the authors stated that “consumers seem not to

understand some of the information on the food labels because of the difficulties in interpreting

what is written.” (2017). This means that some people might not look at labels because they are

unable to comprehend what some of the nutrition facts mean. I think this is also a big key factor

to consider because often times someone who is not familiar with health facts and nutrition

percentages, the food label is the bigger influence when shopping. Due to the misunderstanding

of health labels they may stick to one particular brand based off what is being used in the

household. Not knowing what you are consuming into your body can affect your health in many

different ways, which is why it is important to balance out the nutrients your body needs, but
Shari-Fa Harrigan Bio 1010 April 25,2019

with little knowledge on health facts that task may be challenging. For some people even if they

are familiar with the product, they still look at the label, it may be difficult for older people to

interpret labels. Food labels should be clear for anyone of any age to understand what the

nutrition facts contain and what the health benefits are.