Abstract
Food literacy refers to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for individuals to choose foods that promote health. As the rate of diet-related diseases increases, food literacy is becoming more important. However, there are no tools available to evaluate food literacy among the Korean elderly. We derived 547 questions from a literature review and, after three rounds of Delphi surveys, selected 33 preliminary questions. We calculated the content validity ratio of the questions and applied a face validity procedure. We then selected 32 questions, assessed their validity, and distributed them as a questionnaire to 205 elderly people. We then conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the validity of the questionnaire and used an internal consistency index (Cronbach’s α coefficient) to determine reliability. Based on the factor analysis, 13 questions were selected, distributed among three factors, and evaluated using the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett sphericity tests. The factor analysis showed that KMO was 0.872, which is a highly acceptable score, and the Bartlett sphericity test was χ2 = 1,374.69 at p = 0.00. The food literacy questionnaire developed in this study will likely be helpful for improving the healthcare of elderly people.
Highlights
Food literacy is a recently introduced concept pertaining to knowledge and skills related to the use and production of food
We selected a total of 112 papers, and a total of 547 questions were obtained through the literature search. These questions were classified into eight food information categories and three information comprehension categories [1,3]
We considered the fact that the decreasing cognitive abilities in older people can contribute to a decrease in understanding, and, we tried to avoid questions about new topics and making a lengthy questionnaire [25]
Summary
Food literacy is a recently introduced concept pertaining to knowledge and skills related to the use and production of food. Food literacy helps to protect and promote health via the choice of appropriate foods [3]. Food literacy can increase awareness of salt intake and plays a role in the onset of diet-related diseases. When food literacy is low, the likelihood of various chronic diseases increases, resulting in significant costs to individuals and society [5]. Greater food literacy is associated with more self-control, less impulsive behavior, consumption of more nutritious foods, and better health and well-being. Food literacy can prevent chronic diseases and facilitate disease management [2,6,7,8,9,10]
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