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Research Roundup

A scoping review of food literacy interventions

17 October 2024

Food literacy (FL) has been identified as a key component to improving diet and health, and is a ‘contextual factor’ in the current review of the Australian Dietary Guidelines.  

Interventions that are designed to improve food and nutrition habits are a crucial strategy in addressing the increased burden of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. FL is a framework that includes the knowledge, skills, and behaviours necessary to plan, manage, select, prepare, and eat food to meet dietary needs and promote health and well-being.  

A recent scoping review (1) mapped the current published evidence of FL interventions and assessed these against a framework to design such interventions over the last four years. This framework included four domains: Plan and Manage, Select, Prepare, and Eat — each with specific components that contribute to overall food literacy. 

Seven studies were reviewed. Results indicated that the most common target populations for FL intervention studies were university students and adults from middle to low-income households and socially disadvantaged areas. These groups are at high risk of food insecurity and poor dietary habits.  

Most interventions were short-term, lasting between three to five weeks, and included a mix of face-to-face sessions, online platforms, and interactive tools like games. The interventions varied widely in structure, making it difficult to compare outcomes directly. Interventions that used a specific FL theoretical framework generally reported stronger improvements in FL outcomes —suggesting therefore that a robust theoretical foundation is crucial for the effectiveness of FL interventions.  

Overall, FL interventions appeared to effectively enhance dietary intake, particularly in increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables and reducing the intake of ultra-processed foods.

Key results were: 

  • Improved vegetable intake: Several studies reported significant increases in vegetable consumption post-intervention. For example, three studies noted significant improvements in mean vegetable intake. 
  • Improved fruit intake: Two studies identified significant improvements in fruit consumption. 
  • Overall dietary improvements: One study using the German Food Frequency Questionnaire (GFFQ) reported significant improvements in overall dietary intake. 
  • Reduced ultra-processed food purchases: One study that tracked food purchases using an app reported significant reductions in the purchasing of ultra-processed foods compared to the control group.  
  • Sustained improvements: Some studies demonstrated long-term improvements in dietary intake, with follow-up measures showing sustained positive changes in food literacy and dietary behaviours.  

However, the review identified significant gaps in the literature, particularly the lack of focus on critical analysis skills within the ‘Select’ domain which included the ability to access food through multiple sources and know the advantages and disadvantages of these; determine what is in a food product, where it came from, how to store it and how to use it; and how to judge the quality of food.  

The authors recommended that future interventions studies focus on disadvantaged populations at high risk of food insecurity, have larger cohort sizes, include long-term follow-up measures and include control groups to confirm and further explore the benefits of this area of research. 

While the review had a rigorous methodology, the following limitations were identified:  

  • only a small number of studies were reviewed as it is an emerging research area 
  • measurement tools used to assess FL varied between interventions limited the comparability of outcomes across studies 
  • some studies also lacked detailed reporting of their interventions, which led to difficulties when interpreting and mapping the intervention components. 

Reference  

  1. O’Brien K, MacDonald-Wicks L, Heaney SE. A Scoping Review of Food Literacy Interventions. Nutrients. 2024; 16(18):3171. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16183171