Survey And Analysis Of The Current Consuming Situation And The Quality Administration Of The Health-care Food

Purpose: The paper is to provide scientific evidence for proper consumption of health-care food and improved administration measures by the relative departments, through conducting a survey of the current consuming situation, local resident's awareness and the quality administration of health-care food in Taiyuan.Methods::Asked as many as 500 consumers of health-care food in 12 large-scale chain stores of pharmaceutical products in 6 districts of Taiyuan to complete my self-designed survey forms, so as to gain such information as their knowledge, attitude and consumption on health-care food, and an analysis was made on it.Results:1. People's need for health-care food varies with the change of their age. The main consumers of health-care food are those aged 25-55. Those who received 12-year education and above are biggest buyers of health-care food; those who work in public institutions, enterprises or as private business dealers rank top in terms of money they spent on health-care food; those with medium and low income constitutes the main consumers.2. Consumers acquainted themselves with health-care food mainly through the media, like television and radio. Of those consumers, 48.2% deemed the promotions on health-care food unreliable, and 39.4% knew that some chemical food additives have been put into the health-care food in the present market.3. Consumers of health-care food pay more attention to the products' function, food safety, prices, brands, etc. They choose a dietary supplement mainly because it will help lower their blood lipid and blood pressure and strengthen their immune system. Their need for health-care food varies according to the age, gender, occupation, etc.4. When consumers encounter difficulties in purchasing or using dietary supplement, 50% of them will file a complaint to relative departments in order to safeguard their rights.5. At present, illegal dealing of health-care food is quite serious. First, the function of common food will be exaggerated to promote its sales as health-care food; second, the state approval number for health-care food will be illegally used to produce unauthorized products; third, free lectures by so-called experts will be held and free diagnosis will be provided to tempt consumers into making blind purchase.6. Little attention has been paid to the quality of the health-care food by the dealers, 75% of whom did not make any record in products purchase and ask for relative qualifications and receipts, so that the administration over the products and the tracing management by the relative departments is rendered impossible.Conclusions:1. People's need for health-care food is closely related to their gender, age, occupation, education, income, knowledge on health-care food, operating situation of health-care food, etc.2. It exists that consumers are temped into buying health-care food blindly by ads, for they have too little knowledge to distinguish dietary supplement from medicine.3. Consumers have weak awareness of protecting themselves and safeguarding their rights, unable to avoid being bothered by fake products.4. At present, problems are serious in illegal dealing of health-care food and the use of illegal chemical food additives. Illegal ads and exaggerated promotions on health-care food drew most complaints by consumers, resulting in severe credit crisis of health-care food.5. Most health-care food dealers make no record in products purchase and ask for no relative qualifications and receipts.