Consumer Attitudes Toward Health Claim Guidelines-Deriving Methods for Framing Health Claim Labeling Regulations for Better Consumer Understanding

This study focused on finding more effective and compatible expressions for delivering information on health functional foods (HFFs) based on consumer patterns and understanding. Health claims which could influence the consumers' decision to purchase HFFs are regulated by the government to protect consumers from misrepresentation. Focus group interviews were conducted to design the contents of an online quantitative survey. The survey investigated consumer characteristics; the factors influencing their positive attitude towards and understanding of the health claim labeling methods. HFF consumer characteristics, (Daily-life-consumption, Active-exploring-consumption, and Over-prudent- consumption) were defined in this study, and the factors (Trust, PostCOVID19, Benefit, Intake) which could influence a positive attitude to purchase HFFs were discovered by factor analysis. The most common characteristic of HFF consumers was "Daily-life-consumption". "Benefit"was considered the most important factor in purchasing HFFs. "Daily-life-consumption"and "Benefit"showed the highest correlation among the categories. When comparing changes in consumer understanding and reliability while adding technical terms to the functional labeling such as "Decreasing Intima-Media Thickness"(PME88 melon) and "Suppressing Helicobacter pylori"(Spanish licorice), consumers showed a higher understanding of the term "Suppressing Helicobacter pylori". However, they may have an inferior understanding of unfamiliar medical terminology like "Decreasing Intima-Media Thickness". This study found that Korean HFF consumers, in general, are discerning enough to recognize health claims properly. The results suggest that efforts are needed to improve the regulations to encourage the use of detailed expressions in daily life, based on the consumers' cultural background and common knowledge, rather than unfamiliar terms to consumer.