Examining the Role of Food Literacy in Shaping Adolescents’ Dietary Behaviours

Abstract

The high prevalence of lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases including overweight and obesity is a major public health challenge of the 21st century. The development of overweight and obesity, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer and type 2 diabetes is more likely for dietary intakes rich in sugars, fat, and low in fruits and vegetables. Currently, adolescents’ dietary behaviours generally do not align with national healthy dietary guidelines and have been described as poor, with low intake of fruit and vegetables and high intake of sweetened beverages, sweets and convenience foods. Interventions aiming to improve adolescents’ dietary behaviours have shown minimal to modest outcomes, warranting further attention in this area. Food literacy has been identified as a potential construct that influences the outcomes of dietary interventions as it connects food and nutrition knowledge with food skills, and critical decision making about dietary behaviours. Although food literacy is increasingly recognised as important, very little was known about how adolescents become food literate. There was a lack of high-quality evidence on this topic, which creates a challenge in clarifying the strength and nature of the association between food literacy and dietary behaviours among adolescents. What was known is that schools are influential settings in forming adolescents’ dietary behaviours. Therefore, this research program aimed to explore the role of food literacy in shaping adolescents’ dietary behaviours in order to inform the development of future interventions to facilitate healthy dietary behaviours of adolescents.