Association of Adolescents’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) on Nutrition Labels and their Nutritional Status

Nutrition labels play an important role in promoting proper nutrition. The purpose of the study was to establish the association of knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) on nutrition labels in relation to the nutritional status of adolescents. Three hundred and ninety-three (390) high school students, aged 12 to 17 years old, were the respondents for the study. Two sets of questionnaires were administered to determine the respondents’ (1) demographic characteristics; (2) dietary habits; and (3) knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) on nutrition labels. Through descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations analyses, it was found that the respondents had high KAP ratings on nutrition labels, indicating the respondents’ high knowledge on nutrition labels, positive attitude towards nutrition labels, and practice on nutrition labels. Despite high KAP ratings, the study found that KAP and nutritional status has weak (r=0.023, p=0.645) relations. It can be inferred that nutritional labeling alone is insufficient to improve the nutritional status of the group. Other contributing factors such as food habits, social influence, and accessibility to source of food with nutrition labels; information dissemination mechanisms; and presence of diseases are to be determined in order to further elucidate the association between nutrition labels and nutritional status.