Food Center participants' nutrition knowledge and self-perceived quality of diet

Abstract

Those with low incomes face various difficulties in maintaining a nutritionally adequate diet. During the past two decades, the number of people living below the Federal poverty levels has increased substantially. The purpose of this study was to determine the Pasadena/Altadena (Los Angeles County) Food Center recipients' perception of the quality of their own and their family's diet, and to assess nutrition knowledge. This information was deemed necessary in order to intervene with an appropriate nutrition education program. Participants in this study were 207 food recipients of two Food Centers of the Community Housing Services (CHS) in the Pasadena/Altadena community of Los Angeles County of Southern California. The Food Center participants were queried as to self-perceived quality of their, and their family's, diet. In addition, a short nutrition knowledge questionnaire was administered. Approximately 1 3 of the respondents rated their diet as good or excellent while the rest (67.6%) rated the quality of their diet as fair, poor or very poor. The Food Center recipients' nutrition knowledge was deemed very poor, with 70% of the respondents answering only three, or fewer than three, of the eight questions correctly. This information will be utilized to set up a nutrition education intervention for the Food Center participants.