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Objective: 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. Design: 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 ®nal 50 item version was administered to two groups differing in nutritional expertise on two occasions to assess the construct validity and test-retest reliability. Setting: The questionnaire was developed in 1994 in the UK. Subjects: Three hundred and ninety-one members of the general public, recruited via their places of work, completed the questionnaire at the piloting stage. The ®nal version was administered to 168 dietetics and computer science students following a university lecture. Results: 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 signi®cantly better than computer experts [F(1167) 200.5, P`0.001], suggesting good construct validity.Conclusions: The ®ndings 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. Sponsorship: The study was funded by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Descriptors: nutrition knowledge; psychometrics; diet; questionnaire IntroductionSince the 1950s the link between diet and chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disorders has been increasingly well recognised world-wide (WHO, 1990). In the UK, attempts to improve the nation's health through dietary change have tended to centre around education. Underlying this approach is the assumption that providing people with the information necessary to choose healthy foods will ultimately lead to an improvement in diet. According to this view, given accurate information about what they should be eating and the implications for their health if they eat the`wrong' foods, people will change their diets appropriately. Organisations like the Health Education Authority in the UK produce extensive literature aimed at informing people about appropriate dietary behaviour. Their most recent lea¯et, entitled`Eight Guidelines for a Healthy Diet' (HEA, 1997) includes advice to eat more starchy foods, plenty of fruit and vegetables and to cut down on fatty and sugary foods, as well as information about what these foods are, explanations of the kinds of health bene®ts of following the guidelines and practical tips and recipes to help people make the ...

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.

The majority of studies examining nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour have been cross-sectional. In contrast, this longitudinal study aims to examine changes in individuals' nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour over time. Participants were a cohort of mothers who in 1993 completed questionnaires on nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour and who reported that they intended to change their diets over the next 12 months. This study administered the same questionnaires in 1994, with additional questions to examine further changes in eating habits. Results and implications are discussed.

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