Is There an Association Between Food Literacy and Diet Quality in Young Adult College Men?

Food literacy skills can improve dietary intake in young adults as it provides them with the tools they need to make healthier food-related decisions. The benefits of improving food literacy includes the reduction in the risk of prevalent, preventable dietrelated diseases such as obesity, T2DM, heart disease, and other chronic diseases that plague the Unites States today. Previous literature reports primarily on college female samples. Because a large proportion of the samples in the available studies are female, the current literature may not reflect young adult men’s food literacy and its comparison to their overall diet quality. The purpose of this research study was to determine if young adult male university students’ food literacy skills were related to their diet quality. The objectives were to determine the young men’s food literacy skills and the diet quality and then compare the two with their eating behaviors. This study utilized an analytical cross-sectional study design with an electronic questionnaire. The electronic questionnaire was developed with Qualtrics Survey software. The questionnaire contained the consent to participate and 41 items that included the Eating and Food Literacy Behaviors Questionnaire (EFLBQ), the Rapid Eating Assessment for Participants (REAP-S), researcher-developed questions, and demographic items. Measures of central tendency were calculated to characterize the variables. A Spearman’s rho correlation test was performed to determine the correlation between ELFBQ scores and REAP-S results. This was completed for the EFLBQ composite scores and for each factor individually. An ANOVA was run to compare ELFBQ scores and REAP-S results with Eating location, area of study, academic standing and cooking frequency. The Total REAP-S score was related positively correlated to the EFLBQ health and nutrition factor r(259) = .196, p= .001 and negatively to EFLBQ convenience factor r (259) = -181, p= .003. As the food literacy score increased, so did the frequency of evening meal ...