Women Health

Making Changes
Asian diets are still strongly influenced by tradisional shopping, cooking and consumption behaviours. Consumers are more likely to make the bulk of their purchases from wet markets and street foods. There is a high incidence of eating out especially from hawker stalls and local restaurants.
Meansure to encourage healthier lifestyles need to be based on this traditional culture if they are to have any impact. The provision of nutrition information should be made available across all categories of foods and beverages particularly those which make the most contribution to energy and nutrient intakes.
This study showed that people in both Bangkok and Shanghai are eager to get more information on diet and healthy lifestyle. Public health authorities need to determine how best to address these needs and take advantage of the opportunity this offers for education.
Based on this study, it would be premature to mandate any type of nutrition labelling on food and beverage packages until additional research is conducted. This study showed that advertisements are one of the most used and trusted sources of information.
In Bangkok, health associations are widely trusted. One of the first steps in getting Thai consumers to adopt healthier lifestyle may be to use health associations (such as a Nutrition Society) to “advertise”healthy lifestyle message. These messages could also help people identify healthier choices when eating out.
Using nutrition labelling on raw produce and street foods may be difficult to implement. A simple energy-based label system may be an option but would need to be accompanied with extensive education on daily energy needs as this concept does not appear to be widely understood by consumers.
A simple label depicting the calories in the most frequently eaten foods together with knowledge of daily calorie requirements may be a first step in helping consumers to make more informed choices in their everday lives.
Out of the three label options, the energy content label appreared to be best understood in this market and, as in Bangkok, this may offer an options but would need to combine with education on the meaning of energy and the need to balance energy taken in with energy expended to control body weight.
The Singapore government has been labelling healthier choice options at eating stalls at hawker centres for the last few years in recognition of the fact that these outlets provided a significant source of daily energy intake in the country.
The energy – based label would need to be accompanied by education on the meaning of energy balance concept. In addition, it may be worthwhile to test an energy label on which the recommended daily energy.
Another important point note is that shoppers in Shanghai displayed less interest in health, nutrition and food labelling. Respondents were less likely to use the nutrition label when choosing their meals, had fewer healthy concerns than the Thai respondents and were less likely to say the would change their diets if they had more nutrition information.
More research is needed in this market to identify whether most of these findings are repeatable and the basis for the observed differences.

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