Effects of a healthy-eater self-schema and nutrition literacy on healthy-eating behaviors among Taiwanese college students

Abstract

Unhealthy eating behaviors contribute to obesity and chronic illness. This study examined the relative contributions of a healthy-eater self-schema (a self-conception as a healthy eater) and nutrition literacy on healthy-eating behaviors and whether nutrition literacy was a mediator among Taiwanese college students. A total of 1216 undergraduate students from six universities in Taiwan participated in the study from April to June 2016. Healthy-eating behaviors, nutrition literacy, healthy-eater self-schema and known determinants of eating behaviors (e.g. nutrition-related information, health status, nutrition knowledge needs, sex, year in college and residence) were measured by a self-report questionnaire. A hierarchical multiple regression and mediation analysis were conducted with the known determinants of eating behaviors as covariates. Results showed that a healthy-eater self-schema and nutrition literacy explained 9% and 12% of the variance in healthy-eating behaviors, respectively, and both had unique effects on healthy-eating behaviors. The effect of a healthy-eater self-schema on healthy-eating behaviors was partially mediated through nutrition literacy. Findings suggest that both a healthy-eater self-schema and nutrition literacy should be considered when promoting healthy-eating behaviors. Additionally, nutrition literacy interventions should be tailored to the healthy-eater self-schema status and emphasize the personal relevance of being a healthy-eater to improve the intervention's effectiveness.

Towards the Implementation of a Conceptual Framework of Food and Nutrition Literacy: Providing Healthy Eating for the Population

“…Gibbs et al [32] also referred to the critical level of NL, defining the ability to navigate nutrition-related information. Palumbo [16], Liao and Lai [33], Lee et al [34], and Cassar et al [35] summarized the concept of NL, defining it as the capacity or knowledge and skills required for the selection of a healthy diet in everyday life.…”

“…NL definitions mostly involved nutritional information and individuals' capacity and interest in relation to accessing and using such information [5,[27][28][29][30][31][32] in order to maintain nutritional health [13,14,22]. Few definitions directly referred to the ability to select a healthy diet [16,[33][34][35], offering a more synthesized conceptualization of the dimension.…”

“…Cognitive and interpersonal communication skills enable adequately interacting with experts [13,14,31]. Palumbo [16], Liao and Lai [33], Lee et al [34], and Cassar et al [35] synthesized the NL concept to a greater degree and explained it as individuals' ability or knowledge aimed at choosing a healthful diet.…”

“…Some other three studies [30,34,45] adopted an individual point of view and referred to individual's level of nutrition knowledge as a determinant factor of NL. The literature showed an association between poor NL and lower education and socio-economic level [5,22,29,45,[52][53][54] according to different forms of literacy (i.e., health literacy) [55].…”

“…Some studies discussed the relationship between NL and the quality of diet [5,28,33,34,42,53] and some other studies confirmed this association [25,44,45]. Some publications discussed health outcomes related to NL [45,52,75,76].…”