Knowledge and Awareness of Artificial Food Colours and its Impact on Nutrition and Health Among Adolescent Population

Abstract

Food serves as the primary factor for human survival. Various types of foods are consumed by different people of various localities. For children and adolescents, the food is consumed predominantly by its colour. Unfortunately, the natural colours of food are not maintained as such and are altered by using several non-permissible artificial food colour additives. A large body of laboratory research has demonstrated that changing the intensity/saturation of the colour of food and beverage items can exert a sometimes dramatic impact on the expectations, and hence on the subsequent experiences, of consumers (or participants in the lab). However, should the colour not match the taste, then the result may well be a negatively valenced disconfirmation of expectation. The study was designed to find the impact of colour of food in nutrition consumption among 100 participants. In our study, 58% male and 42% female participated, out of them 60% are undergraduates, 29% are graduates, 8% are postgraduates and 3% are uneducated. 75% of the population says colour of food affects nutritional consumption. 63% answered nutritional value of food is dependent upon its colour. The study found that the colour of food can cause an impact on nutritional consumption of health among the adolescent population. As prevention is better than cure, it is essential to implement certain rules or law to evaluate the frequency of using toxic non permitted colour as well as permitted colours and also to prevent ill effects on using both synthetic colour (non-permitted colours) and permitted colour above permissible law to improve health among the population.