Functional food awareness and perceptions in relation to information sources in older adults

BackgroundThe functional food industry has experienced innovative and economic expansion, yet research into consumer perceptions of functional foods and their associated health claims is limited. Among consumers, older adults could benefit from functional foods due to age-related issues pertaining to food and health. The purpose of this research was to identify the need for information related to functional foods among older adults (≥60 years old) and to assess awareness and perceptions of health claims on functional food packages.MethodsCommunity-dwelling older adults (n = 200) completed a researcher administered questionnaire designed to collect information about functional foods including current consumption, motivating factors for consumption, perceived need for information, sources of information for functional foods and awareness of health claims.ResultsPrevalence of functional food consumption among participants was 93.0%. Increased awareness and knowledge was the most commonly reported factor that would promote functional food consumption (85.5%) and 63.5% of participants wanted more information about functional foods with preferred sources being newspapers/magazines/books (68.5%) and food labels (66.1%). Participants were predominately (93.5%) aware of health claims on functional foods and those with more education were more likely to report being aware of health claims (p = 0.045).ConclusionsAlthough functional food consumption among older adults in this sample is high, there is a need for further information regarding functional foods. These results inform stakeholders regarding the potential for information to influence functional food acceptance among older adult consumers.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  Nutrix Journal

• Publication date

  2014-05-17

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1186/1475-2891-13-44PMID 24886306PMCID 4032390
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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