Nutrition, Food Literacy, and Health Literacy

In public conversation (and advertising) about nutrition and health, people often use the terms “nutrition literacy,” “food literacy,” and “health literacy” as if they mean the same thing. But, they don’t. There are threen ecessary concepts that we need to be aware of.

This confusion isn’t just an academic detail.

It shapes how nutrition education and intervention programs are designed and delivered, by whom, with what credentials and licenses. Furthermore, it extends all the way from how we communicate genetic information to someone being tested to how someone reads a food label on a supermarket shelf.

Let’s look at what each term means, how they relate, and why the distinction has practical consequences for our health.

What is Health Literacy?

The concept of health literacy was shaped by researcher Don Nutbeam back in 2000, who defined it as the set of cognitive and social skills that determine a person’s ability to access, understand, and use information relevant to their health. Nutbeam distinguished three levels:

• Functional literacy: the basic ability to read and understand health information. In other words, being able to read, listen to, and understand health information.
• Interactive literacy: the ability to discuss information with health professionals in order to make informed decisions. This includes being able to identify the right health professionals, know their specialty, and maintain open communication with them.
• Critical literacy: the most advanced level, where a person can critically analyze information and gain control over the decisions that affect their life. In practice, this doesn’t mean skepticism, but rather the ability to reason, cross-check information, and think critically.

This three-part model became the foundation on which the later definitions of nutrition literacy and food literacy were built.

What is Nutrition Literacy?

Nutrition literacy specifically refers to a person’s ability and skills to acquire, understand, and use information related to nutrition in daily life. It extends from correctly reading a food label, understanding what “low fat” or “whole grain” means, to recognizing when a piece of nutrition information is trustworthy. Nutrition literacy is the foundation for the food choices we do that shape our everyday eating routine.

What is Food Literacy?

The internationally established definition comes from Vidgen and Gallegos (2014), who described food literacy as a collection of interrelated knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to plan, manage, select, prepare, and eat food in order to meet one’s health and nutritional needs. The researchers themselves described it as the “scaffolding” that empowers individuals, households, and communities to protect the quality of their diet over time.

Their model is organized into four domains:

1. Planning and managing, e.g. how much I spend on food, how I organize my meals, how often, and how I store them.
2. Selecting, e.g. how I compare different products, how I understand food labels, and what criteria I use to avoid or prefer certain categories.
3. Preparing, e.g. what my cooking skills are, whether I know about safe food handling, and how I minimize food waste.
4. Eating, e.g. how well I recognize hunger/satiety, how much I enjoy food, and what quantity, quality, and combinations I usually eat, and how well these habits serve my current situation and health goals.

Literacy in practice

In clinical practice, and not necessarily in scientific research, food literacy and nutrition literacy overlap since both concern a person’s health. Understanding what underlying food information leads to the practical ability to translate it into everyday choices and habits that will either support or undermine a person’s health is what literacy means in clinical practice. Thus, only a registered health professional nutritionist-dietitian should be delivering nutrition-literacy or food-literacy interventions, precisely because both are directly influencing the health of each body in question.

A person’s overall behavior and level of engagement in improving their health is what determines how literate or not they are, and what they need to work on.

The clinical practice of Food Coaching

Moving from research into clinical practice, back in 2015, I set myself the goal of never giving blind instructions to people, but instead educating and helping them develop the skills they need to make the right informed nutrition and health decisions on their own.

And that’s because the relationship between health literacy and health outcomes is well documented. Low health literacy has been associated with worse self-management of chronic conditions, such as diet-related diseases, cardiovascular disease, several cancer types, and diabetes, as well as with increased morbidity and mortality. In the nutrition field, adequate knowledge and skills are now recognized as modifiable risk factors for preventing chronic disease and maintaining a healthy body weight.

This is why Food Coaching programs don’t merely aim at a diet, a menu or a set of calorie targets, but at building the person’s nutrition and food literacy. We work together on achievable goals and changes, so the person has access to excellent scientific information while also developing the skills they need to turn it into a meal within their everyday life.

To plan, cook, and choose within real constraints of time and income, to adapt to setbacks, and to turn theoretical information into a safe, sustainable way of living.

If any of the above skills are a struggle for you, don’t hesitate to book your appointment. Let’s talk.

Call 2109615860 to book an appointment, or click here for a short video call.

References:

1. Nutbeam D. Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century. Health Promot Int. 2000;15(3):259–267. doi: 10.1093/heapro/15.3.259
2. Vidgen HA, Gallegos D. Defining food literacy and its components. Appetite. 2014;76:50–59. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2014.01.010
3. Krause C, Sommerhalder K, Beer-Borst S, Abel T. Just a subtle difference? Findings from a systematic review on definitions of nutrition literacy and food literacy. Health Promot Int. 2018;33(3):378–389. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daw084