Development of a general nutrition knowledge questionnaire for adults

Abstract

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 ...

Nutritional knowledge in European adolescents: results from the HELENA (Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence) study

“…Interestingly, adults do not seem to have any better nutritional knowledge compared with adolescents, not even college students (26)(27)(28)(29) , although in a recent Australian study 72 % of questions were answered correctly (30) . Therefore, the HELENA results suggest that European adolescents might know more about a healthy diet than their US counterparts, and certainly not less than adults.…”

A theoretical and empirical investigation of nutritional label use

“…To measure nutrition knowledge (NKNOW), we asked a series of questions derived from the Nutrition Knowledge questionnaire [42]. The questions examined consumers' knowledge on four sections: dietary recommendations, sources of nutrients, choosing everyday foods and dietdisease relationships.…”

“…We used seven questions of pairwise comparison of foods regarding the nutrient content of foods [3,33,42]. Consumers were asked to compare certain foods (e.g., butter vs. margarine, whole milk vs. skim milk, white bread vs. whole wheat bread) and were asked to indicate which has more cholesterol, fat, fiber, calories, etc.…”

Impact of nutrition knowledge on food evaluations

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