Demographic variation in nutrition knowledge in England

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Abstract

This paper describes a nutrition knowledge survey carried out on a cross-section of the adult population of England ( n = 1040), looking at knowledge relating to current dietary recommendations, sources of nutrients, healthy food choices and diet–disease links. Serious gaps in knowledge about even the basic recommendations were discovered, and there was much confusion over the relationship between diet and disease. Significant differences in knowledge between socio-demographic groups were found, with men having poorer knowledge than women, and knowledge declining with lower educational level and socio-economic status. Possible reasons for these differences and implications for public education campaigns and socio-economic inequalities in health are discussed.

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Most cited references 28

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Socioeconomic status (SES) is consistently associated with health outcomes, yet little is known about the psychosocial and behavioral mechanisms that might explain this association. Researchers usually control for SES rather than examine it. When it is studied, only effects of lower, poverty-level SES are generally examined. However, there is evidence of a graded association with health at all levels of SES, an observation that requires new thought about domains through which SES may exert its health effects. Variables are highlighted that show a graded relationship with both SES and health to provide examples of possible pathways between SES and health end points. Examples are also given of new analytic approaches that can better illuminate the complexities of the SES-health gradient.

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Development of a general nutrition knowledge questionnaire for adults.

K Parmenter, J Wardle (1999)

This paper describes the development of a reliable and valid questionnaire to provide a comprehensive measure of the nutritional knowledge of UK adults. The instrument will help to identify areas of weakness in people's understanding of healthy eating and will also provide useful data for examining the relationship between nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour which, up until now, has been far from clear. Items were generated paying particular attention to content validity. The initial version of the questionnaire was piloted and assessed on psychometric criteria. Items which did not reach acceptable validity were excluded, and the final 50 item version was administered to two groups differing in nutritional expertise on two occasions to assess the construct validity and test-retest reliability. The questionnaire was developed in 1994 in the UK. Three hundred and ninety-one members of the general public, recruited via their places of work, completed the questionnaire at the piloting stage. The final version was administered to 168 dietetics and computer science students following a university lecture. The internal consistency of each section was high (Cronbach's alpha = 0.70-0.97) and the test-retest reliability was also well above the minimum requirement of 0.7. Nutrition experts scored significantly better than computer experts [F(1167) = 200.5, P<0.001], suggesting good construct validity. The findings demonstrate that the instrument meets psychometric criteria for reliability and construct validity. It should provide a useful scale with which to reassess the relationship between knowledge and dietary behaviour.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Health Educ Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Health Educ Res

Journal ID (hwp): her

Journal ID (publisher-id): healed

Title: Health Education Research

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISSN (Print): 0268-1153

ISSN (Electronic): 1465-3648

Publication date (Print): April 2000

Publication date PMC-release: April 2000

Volume: 15

Issue: 2

Pages: 163-174

Affiliations

ICRF Health Behaviour Unit, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London, 2–16 Torrington Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK

Author notes

J. Wardle

Article

Other ID: 0150163 Publisher ID: 1465-3648

DOI: 10.1093/her/15.2.163

PMC ID: 4344545

PubMed ID: 10751375

SO-VID: 15409170-5d52-401a-9065-3d12dc505141

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date accepted : 09 May 1999

Date received : 25 February 1999

Custom metadata

hwp-legacy-fpage 163

hwp-legacy-dochead Original Articles

ScienceOpen disciplines: Education

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Education

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