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Food literacy and its implications for dietary behaviours

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Special Issue Information
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A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2019) | Viewed by 36075

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sharon Kirkpatrick

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Guest Editor

School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
Interests: dietary assessment; dietary patterns; food policy; food security; food literacy; food environments
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Danielle Gallegos

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Guest Editor

Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4059, Australia
Interests: food insecurity; food literacy; child health; co-design; public health nutrition; social policy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue, entitled “Food literacy and its implications for dietary behaviours” welcomes the submission of manuscripts describing original research (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods), and reviews (systematic, scoping, narrative). Food literacy is a topic of growing interest within the fields of nutrition and public health, with attention paid to the role that it may play in mediating dietary intake and, potentially, in building resiliency to food environments that offer foods not promoted as part of healthy eating patterns (e.g., those high in energy, sugars, and sodium). In the past few years, there have been efforts to conceptualize food literacy as a concept that is broader than but encompasses skills related to food preparation and food management. Emerging frameworks have emphasized the complexity of food literacy and its links with ecological factors, such as the social determinants of health and food environments. For example, food literacy may be desirable but is not sufficient to enable healthy eating in the absence of food security or in food environments that do not provide healthy options. Further, the role of food literacy as a component of initiatives to reduce food waste among consumers in the absence of concerted efforts at other levels of the food system remains unclear. Research is needed to conceptualize food literacy and the onus that it places on individuals versus society to improve eating patterns and their health and environmental impacts, the links between food literacy and food security and related issues, and approaches to measurement.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

Conceptualization and measurement of food literacy
Food literacy and its links to dietary intake and other dietary behaviours
Links between food literacy and other food-related issues, such as food security and environmental sustainability
Evaluations of interventions on food literacy, dietary behaviours, food waste, and other factors.

Dr. Sharon Kirkpatrick
Prof. Danielle Gallegos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

food literacy
food skills
food management
food preparation
food provisioning
food selection
food systems

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 472 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effectiveness of an Adult Food Literacy Program

by Andrea Begley, Ellen Paynter, Lucy M. Butcher and Satvinder S. Dhaliwal

Nutrients 2019, 11(4), 797; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/nu11040797 - 07 Apr 2019

Cited by 37 | Viewed by 6976

Abstract

Nutrition education programs aim to improve food literacy domains covering the planning and management, selection, preparation and cooking and eating of healthy food. Reviews indicate programs are effective but acknowledge challenges with evaluation of community focused delivery. Food Sensations^® for Adults (FSA) is a free four-week nutrition and cooking program targeted at low-to-middle income Western Australians who would like to improve their food literacy. The aim of this research was assess how effective FSA is in changing food literacy and selected dietary behaviours. Statistical analysis identified a significant increase in postprogram scores for domains of planning and management, selection and preparation using factor scores (n = 1092). The proportion of the score increase in the postprogram scores compared to the preprogram scores was 10–25%. There was also a significant increase in self-reported fruit and vegetable serve intake, equating to an average increase of ¼ serve/day of fruit and ½ serve/day of vegetables. Of those classified as low food literacy, 61–74% improved postprogram scores in the three domains. FSA is effective in improving food literacy and dietary behaviours and the results add to the evidence base as to how effective these programs can be and for whom they should be targeted for future success. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food literacy and its implications for dietary behaviours)

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18 pages, 474 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Examining the Association between Food Literacy and Food Insecurity

by Andrea Begley, Ellen Paynter, Lucy M. Butcher and Satvinder S. Dhaliwal

Nutrients 2019, 11(2), 445; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/nu11020445 - 20 Feb 2019

Cited by 82 | Viewed by 12270

Abstract

Poor food literacy behaviours may contribute to food insecurity in developed countries. The aim of this research was to describe the apparent prevalence of food insecurity in adults at enrolment in a food literacy program and to examine the relationship between food insecurity and a range of independent variables. Individuals attending the Food Sensations^® for Adults program in Western Australia from May 2016 to April 2018 completed a pre-program questionnaire (n = 1433) indicating if they had run out of money for food in the past month (food insecurity indicator), frequency of food literacy behaviours, selected dietary behaviours, and demographic characteristics. The level of food insecurity reported by participants (n = 1379) was 40.5%. Results from multiple logistic regression demonstrated that behaviours related to planning and management, shopping, preparation, and cooking were all statistically independently associated with food insecurity, in addition to soft/soda drink consumption, education, employment status, and being born in Australia. The results are salient as they indicate an association between food literacy and food insecurity. The implications are that food insecure participants may respond differently to food literacy programs. It may be necessary to screen people enrolling in programs, tailor program content, and include comprehensive measures in evaluation to determine effect on the impact of food literacy programs on different subgroups. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food literacy and its implications for dietary behaviours)

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15 pages, 540 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Evaluation Tool Development for Food Literacy Programs

by Andrea Begley, Ellen Paynter and Satvinder S. Dhaliwal

Nutrients 2018, 10(11), 1617; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/nu10111617 - 02 Nov 2018

Cited by 44 | Viewed by 8005

Abstract

Food literacy is described as the behaviours involved in planning, purchasing, preparing, and eating food and is critical for achieving healthy dietary intakes. Food literacy programs require valid and reliable evaluation measures. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a self-administered questionnaire to measure food literacy behaviours targeted by the Food Sensations^® for Adults program in Western Australia. Validity and reliability tests were applied to questionnaire item development commencing with (a) a deductive approach using Australian empirical evidence on food literacy as a construct along with its components and (b) adapting an extensively-tested food behaviour checklist to generate a pool of items for investigation. Then, an iterative process was applied to develop a specific food literacy behaviour checklist for program evaluation including exploratory factor analysis. Content, face, and construct validity resulted in a 14-item food behaviour checklist. Three factors entitled Plan & Manage, Selection, and Preparation were evident, resulting in Cronbach’s alpha 0.79, 0.76, and 0.81, respectively, indicating good reliability of each of these factors. This research has produced a validated questionnaire, is a useful starting point for other food literacy programs, and has applications globally. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food literacy and its implications for dietary behaviours)

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Review

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19 pages, 951 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Scoping Review of the Validity, Reliability and Conceptual Alignment of Food Literacy Measures for Adults

by Claudia Amouzandeh, Donna Fingland and Helen Anna Vidgen

Nutrients 2019, 11(4), 801; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/nu11040801 - 08 Apr 2019

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 8203

Abstract

The measurement of food literacy has recently gained momentum globally. The aim of this paper is to review the literature in order to describe and analyse the measurement of adult food literacy. The objectives are to i) identify tools that explicitly measure food literacy in adults; ii) summarise their psychometric properties; and iii) critique tool items against the four domains and 11 components of food literacy, as conceptualised by Vidgen and Gallegos. Using the PRISMA guidelines, a search of seven databases (PubMed, Embase, ScienceDirect, Scopus, EBSCOhost, A+ Education, and ProQuest) was undertaken. 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Papers reported on either the development of a tool to explicitly measure food literacy or a part thereof (n = 5); food literacy strategy indicators (n = 1); tools developed to evaluate a food literacy intervention (n = 3); or tools to measure food literacy as a characteristic within a broader study (n = 3). Six tools captured all four domains. None measured all components. Items measuring the same component varied considerably. Most tools referenced a theoretical framework, were validated and reliable. This review will assist practitioners select and develop tools for the measurement of food literacy in their context. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food literacy and its implications for dietary behaviours)

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