Food literacy and the home food environment in Maltese young adults

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Food literacy (FL) encompasses the behaviours, skills and knowledge that is required to prepare, purchase, consume and plan healthy foods. The period of young adulthood is characterised by poor dietary behaviours therefore it is an ideal period to enhance FL. Food skills and nutrition knowledge (NK) are acknowledged to be the main drivers that shape the home food environment (HFE). The aim of this local study was to explore FL in Maltese young adults (18-25 years) with respect to their HFE. METHOD: A self-administered (adapted and translated) questionnaire was disseminated, following ethics consent, via a boosted post on social media during the period October to December 2020. The data was then statistically analysed using SPSS (IBM, SPSS version 27). The Kruskal Wallis, the chi-squared test and the spearman correlation tests were used to assess the FL and NK in the study sample and to explore any associations between FL, dietary behaviours and HFE. RESULTS: The questionnaire respondents (n=208) were predominantly female (n=149, 71.3%), well-educated and with a BMI range of 20-25 kg/m2(n=130,65.6%). The overall median score for FL was 20 (max 30) while an overall median score of 8 (max 12) was obtained for NK. Participants were least knowledgeable regarding salt with 70.6% (n=142) not knowledgeable which foods had a high or low salt content. The main food purchasing considerations were health and quality (n=135, 65%) and taste (n=115, 55%). No statistical significance was observed between overall FL score and home food dietary behaviours (p˃0.05). A positive association between FL and home food availability of water(p=.000), sugar free drinks(p=.049) and vegetables (p=.033) was observed. CONCLUSION: The study participants had an adequate level of FL and NK about most, although not all, the nutrients included in the questionnaire; however, the study sample was biased towards respondents with a higher educational level. Strategies to encourage and support young adults to further engage in healthy dietary practices keeping in mind drivers such as taste and the inclusion of enhanced awareness and improved knowledge of key nutrients, such as salt, is recommended.