Development of food literacy in children and adolescents: implications for the design of strategies to promote healthier and more sustainable diets

Abstract

Food literacy has emerged as a key individual trait to promote the transformation of food systems toward healthy and sustainable diets. Childhood and adolescence are key periods for establishing the foundations of eating habits. Different food literacy competencies are acquired as children develop different cognitive abilities, skills, and experiences, contributing to the development of critical tools that allow them to navigate a complex food system. Thus, the design and implementation of programs to support the development of food literacy from early childhood can contribute to healthier and more sustainable eating habits. In this context, the aim of the present narrative review is to provide an in-depth description of how different food literacy competencies are developed in childhood and adolescence, integrating the extensive body of evidence on cognitive, social, and food-related development. Implications for the development of multisectoral strategies to target the multidimensional nature of food literacy and promote the development of the 3 types of competencies (relational, functional, and critical) are discussed.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuad072
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
Additional Information: Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Life Sciences Institute. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com. Funding: The review was conducted in the context of the project “Edulia: Bringing down barriers to children’s healthy eating,” which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skodowska-Curie grant agreement 764985.
Uncontrolled Keywords: adolescence,childhood,food literacy,food skills,nutrition education
Publication ISSN: 0029-6643
Last Modified: 07 Nov 2024 08:17
Date Deposited: 26 Jun 2023 15:42
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://academi ... nuad072/7204116 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Review article
Published Date: 2023-06-20
Published Online Date: 2023-06-20
Accepted Date: 2023-06-01
Authors: Ares, Gastón
De Rosso, Sofia
Mueller, Carina
Philippe, Kaat
Pickard, Abigail (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-1708-500X)
Nicklaus, Sophie
van Kleef, Ellen
Varela, Paula

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