Nutrition Literacy of Middle School Students and Its Influencing Factors: A Cross-Sectional Study in Chongqing, China

Abstract

Nutrition literacy plays an important role in children's dietary habits and nutrition. This study aimed to analyse the status of nutrition literacy and its influencing factors amongst middle school students in Chongqing, China. “Nutrition literacy scale for middle school students in Chongqing” was used in 29 districts of Chongqing in September 2020. The scores of nutrition literacy and its' three sub-domains (functional, interactive and critical nutrition literacy) were divided into low and high groups based on their median scores. Binary logistic regression was used to measure the influencing factors of nutrition literacy. A total of 18,660 middle school students were included in this study. The median of nutrition literacy of middle school students was 61.68 (IQR = 14.37). Interactive nutrition literacy had the highest score (median = 70.00, IQR = 20.00), followed by functional nutrition literacy (median = 68.69, IQR = 14.14) and critical nutrition literacy (median = 45.83, IQR = 25.00). Students who were the minority (OR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.637–0.785), in senior high school (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.477–0.548), in rural areas (OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.790–0.911), receiving school meal support from the government (OR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.591–0.664), with other caregivers' parenting (OR = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.805–0.914), with parents having a low level of education and with an abnormal BMI [thin (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.837–0.990), overweight (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.785–0.968), and obese (OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.767–0.902)] presented less probability of being a high level of nutrition literacy. Our results could assist public health authorities in developing strategies of nutrition literacy promotion for references and theoretical foundations.

Parent’s food literacy and adolescents nutrition literacy influence household’s food security and adolescent’s malnutrition and anemia: Findings from a national representative cross sectional study

“…In Lebanon, only one preliminary study was conducted to assess the NL of adolescents and observed a lower percentage of poor NL (21.2%) than that currently reported (28). Moreover, our findings with regards to adolescents' NL is similar to that reported among Chinese (27), and Turkish adolescents (29,30). Our findings are warrantable and could be partially explained by the fact that almost all (91.0%) of the adolescents reported not receiving nutrition education in their schools' curriculum in the current study.…”

Nutrition and Food Literacy in the MENA Region: A Review to Inform Nutrition Research and Policy Makers

“…Nonetheless, food literacy and nutrition literacy were shown to be of better status in multiple countries outside the MENA region, even among adolescent participants. This was evident in recent studies conducted in China [ 74 ], Turkey [ 62 , 63 , 64 ], the U.S. [ 75 ], and Ghana [ 76 ], with all emphasizing adequate nutrition literacy in the sampled population, showing good competencies in most or even all food-literacy and nutrition-literacy components. Besides, good nutrition-literacy levels and basic food literacy were recorded in Greece [ 67 ] and Canada [ 77 ], respectively.…”

Association Between Nutrition Literacy and Overweight/Obesity of Adolescents: A Cross–Sectional Study in Chongqing, China

“…To the best of our knowledge, few studies have examined the association between NL of adolescents and BMI or overweight/obesity. Our previous studies found that BMI is a determinant of NL among middle school students in Chongqing, China ( 24 ). Using multinomial logistic regression model and subgroup analyses, our findings suggested inverse relationships between NL, FNL, and overweight/obesity, different from some previous studies ( 11 , 18 ).…”