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There is currently limited data available on the Saudi population’s adoption of nutritional guidelines or on other factors influencing food purchasing behaviors. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of nutrition label use, explore factors that could influence food choices during grocery shopping and evaluate the association of these factors with the sociodemographic characteristics of mothers.

Mothers were recruited at a community event. They were requested to complete a questionnaire that assessed social and lifestyle characteristics as well as product features that influence food choices during grocery shopping.

The study included 157 mothers. The prevalence of label reading was high with 69% of participants always or mostly reading labels pre-purchase. Features that were most likely to “always” influence purchase choices included: product healthfulness (57.3%), children’s preference (45.9%), specific needs of a family member (38.9%). The feature “awareness campaigns and workshops” was found to be associated with both low and high-income groups. There was a poor understanding of what the “light” food label meant with only 37.6% answering correctly.

Further research is needed with a higher sample size with diverse sociodemographic characteristics.

Saudi mothers are influenced by product healthfulness as well as children’s and family members’ needs when grocery shopping. There was a high prevalence of reading nutrition labels prepurchase. These findings can inform future public health policy on the main drivers for food purchasing decisions and the need for educational initiatives in Saudi Arabia.

The present research collates factors influencing food choices

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the influence of mood/emotions and religious experience on Islamic stock markets during the Ramadan month.

This study uses stock returns data of two countries – Saudi Arabia and Iran – from January 2008 to September 2014 and the ARMA-GARCH models to study impact of the Ramadan month on the return and volatility of the stock market in these two countries.

The results of this study show some differences in the impact of the Ramadan month on the return and volatility of the stock market in these two countries. While the Ramadan month has a significant positive influence on the mean returns and the volatility of the Saudi market, its influence on the Iranian market is found to be insignificant. Further analysis on the last ten days of the Ramadan month provides a similar result for the Saudi market. However, for the Iranian market, volatility is significantly negatively affected during these last ten days.

Most prior studies have found significant changes in returns during the Ramadan month but a deeper understanding of this stock market anomaly is needed. The results point toward the influence of mood/emotions and religious experience in explaining the existence of the Ramadan anomaly.