Association between nutrition labelling awareness and the metabolic syndrome: results from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) 2016–2018

Abstract

Healthy dietary habits reduce the likelihood for metabolic syndrome. This study investigated whether awareness of nutrition information is associated with a decreased likelihood for metabolic syndrome after adjusting for potential confounders among Korean adults aged 20 years and older. Data were obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (KNHANES) 2016–2018. Of the 14,490 participants, 4,001 (27.6%) participants had metabolic syndrome. In total, 3,815 (26.3%) participants checked nutritional facts and made labelling-dependent purchasing decisions (aware + consider), 7,001 (48.3%) checked nutritional facts but did not make labelling-dependent purchasing decisions or were aware of nutrition facts but did not check them when making food purchasing decisions (aware + not consider), and 3,674 (25.4%) were unaware of nutritional facts (not aware). The aware + consider group was less likely to develop metabolic syndrome than other groups. The aware + not consider, and not aware groups were at higher association with metabolic syndrome compared to the aware + consider group. Statistically significant associations were observed between metabolic syndrome and several demographic characteristics including sex, age, household income, education level, employment status, public health insurance status, smoking status, alcohol consumption, and aerobic exercise.