Evaluation of consumer habits and knowledge about dietary fibre and fibre-rich products in Turkish population

Abstract

This study investigated the Turkish consumers’ knowledge about dietary fibres and purchasing behaviours about fibre rich foods and also their attitudes towards food labelling with specific emphasis on dietary fibre. The survey consisted of a longitudinal study undertaken on a sample of 293 participants. For the analysis of the data, basic descriptive statistics was used, complemented with statistical tests (U-Mann Whitney [UMW] for comparisons between two groups and Kruskal–Wallis [KW] test for comparisons between three or more groups). Finally, a tree classification analysis was done to evaluate the relative importance of each of the possible influential variables on knowledge: age group, level of education, gender or living environment. The results revealed that both the level of knowledge about dietary fibre and foods and also the level of knowledge about dietary fibre and health effects were considered high for the general population. The classification analysis revealed that gender was the major discriminant for knowledge about dietary fibre and foods, while the most important discriminant for knowledge about dietary fibre and health effects was age. The importance of this study resided in the highlight of the pivotal factors that influence people’s knowledge about dietary fibre sources and the health benefits of its ingestion.

Keywords

• turkish consumers
• dietary fibre
• consumption habits
• labelling
• survey