The FDA is set to begin research into an area of critical importance for the health-awareness of the general population: Why is it that food labels are roundly ignored by so many people?

Since the early 1990’s, the number of consumers who utterly ignored food labels on food products has risen by almost 50 percent, and the worst for this were populations under 35 years old.

A new internet-based study has been proposed by the agency, and it expects over 40,000 volunteer participants to help them learn more about three main points:

• The identification of attitudes and beliefs to do with health, diet and label usage
• The relationships between these attitudes and beliefs, demographics, and actual label use
• The relevance of these attitudes between different demographics, to see whether there are different barriers to label use for different age groups

For more info on this study and food labels:
GPO.gov: Internet Survey on Barriers to Food Label Use (bottom of the page)
FDA.gov: Consumer Info: Nutrition Facts Label
NutraUSA: New study to investigate why people ignore food labels