Does social class predict diet quality

Nutrition knowledge and food intake

Study objectives: The factors underlying socioeconomic status differences in smoking, leisure time physical activity, and dietary choice are poorly understood. This study investigated attitudes and beliefs that might underlie behavioural choices, including health locus of control, future salience, subjective life expectancy, and health consciousness, in a nationally representative sample.Design: Data were collected as part of the monthly Omnibus survey of the Office of National Statistics in Britain. Participants: A stratified, probability sample of 2728 households was selected by random sampling of addresses. One adult from each household was interviewed.Main results: Higher SES respondents were less likely to smoke and more likely to exercise and eat fruit and vegetables daily. Lower SES was associated with less health consciousness (thinking about things to do to keep healthy), stronger beliefs in the influence of chance on health, less thinking about the future, and lower life expectancies. These attitudinal factors were in turn associated with unhealthy behavioural choices, independently of age, sex, and self rated health.Conclusions: Socioeconomic differences in healthy lifestyles are associated with differences in attitudes to health that may themselves arise through variations in life opportunities and exposure to material hardship and ill health over the life course.

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/57/6/440.full.pdf

Socioeconomic differences in attitudes and beliefs about healthy lifestyles

The status and explanatory role of nutrition knowledge is uncertain in public health nutrition. Much of the uncertainty about this area has been generated by conceptual confusion about the nature of knowledge and behaviours, and, nutrition knowledge and food behaviours in particular. So the paper describes several key concepts in some detail. The main argument is that ‘nutrition knowledge’ is a necessary but not sufficient factor for changes in consumers’ food behaviours. Several classes of food behaviours and their causation are discussed. They are influenced by a number of environmental and intra-individual factors, including motivations. The interplay between motivational factors and information processing is important for nutrition promoters as is the distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge. Consideration of the domains of nutrition knowledge shows that their utility is likely to be related to consumers’ and nutritionists’ particular goals and viewpoints. A brief survey of the recent literature shows that the evidence for the influence of nutrition knowledge on food behaviours is mixed. Nevertheless, recent work suggests that nutrition knowledge may play a small but pivotal role in the adoption of healthier food habits. The implications of this overview for public health nutrition are: (i) We need to pay greater attention to the development of children’s and adults’ knowledge frameworks (schema building); (ii) There is a need for a renewed proactive role for the education sector; (iii) We need to take account of consumers’ personal food goals and their acquisition of procedural knowledge which will enable them to attain their goals; (iv) Finally, much more research into the ways people learn and use food-related knowledge is required in the form of experimental interventions and longitudinal studies.

/pdf/nutrition-knowledge-and-food-consumption-can-nutrition-48w7svoqo0.pdf

Nutrition knowledge and food consumption: can nutrition knowledge change food behaviour?

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/752149/10280438/1295328110193/Use+of+food+labels+UK+2010.pdf?token=2ygHDEF0zv8zD46u8YTDzbD4jDU%3D

Nutrition knowledge, and use and understanding of nutrition information on food labels among consumers in the UK

Objective: This paper describes the development of a reliable and valid questionnaire to provide a comprehensive measure of the nutritional knowledge of UK adults. The instrument will help to identify areas of weakness in people’s understanding of healthy eating and will also provide useful data for examining the relationship between nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour which, up until now, has been far from clear. Design: Items were generated paying particular attention to content validity. The initial version of the questionnaire was piloted and assessed on psychometric criteria. Items which did not reach acceptable validity were excluded, and the final 50 item version was administered to two groups differing in nutritional expertise on two occasions to assess the construct validity and test-retest reliability. Setting: The questionnaire was developed in 1994 in the UK. Subjects: Three hundred and ninety-one members of the general public, recruited via their places of work, completed the questionnaire at the piloting stage. The final version was administered to 168 dietetics and computer science students following a university lecture. Results: The internal consistency of each section was high (Cronbach’s alpha=0.70–0.97) and the test-retest reliability was also well above the minimum requirement of 0.7. Nutrition experts scored significantly better than computer experts [F(1167)=200.5, P<0.001], suggesting good construct validity. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate that the instrument meets psychometric criteria for reliability and construct validity. It should provide a useful scale with which to reassess the relationship between knowledge and dietary behaviour. Sponsorship: The study was funded by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Development of a general nutrition knowledge questionnaire for adults

This paper describes a nutrition knowledge survey carried out on a cross-section of the adult population of England (n = 1040), looking at knowledge relating to current dietary recommendations, sources of nutrients, healthy food choices and diet-disease links. Serious gaps in knowledge about even the basic recommendations were discovered, and there was much confusion over the relationship between diet and disease. Significant differences in knowledge between socio-demographic groups were found, with men having poorer knowledge than women, and knowledge declining with lower educational level and socio-economic status. Possible reasons for these differences and implications for public education campaigns and socio-economic inequalities in health are discussed.

/pdf/demographic-variation-in-nutrition-knowledge-in-england-3radjtl1jy.pdf

K. Parmenter

Papers

Nutrition knowledge and food intake

Development of a general nutrition knowledge questionnaire for adults

Demographic variation in nutrition knowledge in England