Day 1

On Day 1, our group had the opportunity to travel from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai where we arranged a meeting with a general practitioner to get her views on our research topic of nutritional literacy.

Based on our interview with her, we have found some interesting findings regarding her perception of nutrition literacy in Chiang Mai. According to the doctor, the people of Thailand in general do not pay as much attention to the nutritional content of their food products as compared to other factors such as taste and cost.

Thais in general have a liking towards food that is salty or sweet where they have the habit of adding more condiments to their food products that they buy. One other factor that affects their food choices is the cost of the food products. As compared to Singapore, Thais do not have as much disposable income as us Singaporeans do, therefore they are less willing to spend more money on healthier food. Hence, Thais generally resort to a diet high in carbohydrates as it is more readily available and also much cheaper than other foods such as meat.

This finding has caused me to consider how economic factors also have a role to play in influencing the food choices of Thais. This has in a way added to the complexity of the issue of nutrition in Thailand.

Following our findings based on the information given by the doctor, my group decided that we should attempt to test out the findings in order to cross reference the results from the interview with other interviews and surveys. This is necessary because we must be mindful that the views presented by the doctor may not be entirely reflective of the situation on the ground. As a result, we also needed to make minor adjustments to our interview questions when conducting street interviews to get a deeper understanding of what the people of Chiang Mai feel about their nutritional well-being. We also used other methods to test their nutritional understanding rather than just asking whether or not they understand nutritional labels.

We conducted an exercise where we gave interviewees 2 different packets of potato chips and asked them if they could tell which was healthier. In my opinion, this exercise is more effective on their nutritional understanding as it demonstrates the extent of the nutritional literacy of the people. I believe that through this experiment, we were able to tell if people actually understood the nutritional labels at the back of the packaging as compared to asking them if they understood. This is because by putting their nutritional literacy to the test, we will be better able to assess the extent of the nutritional understanding which would greatly help in our research.