Discourses and Implications Surrounding the Declining Food Literacy

Running head: HEALTH AND DIET IN SOCIETY 1
HEALTH AND DIET IN SOCIETY
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HEALTH AND DIET IN SOCIETY 2
Discourses and implications surrounding the declining food literacy
One of the most important determinants of good health in the modern society both
nationally and internationally is food literacy. Food literacy represents an individual's attitude,
knowledge, and food skills associated with nutrition. This is because all these do impact greatly
on the foods that they choose to eat. Health outcomes can be impacted in many ways by the
different levels of food literacy. Food literacy is defined as an establishment of attributes and
skills that assist individuals to maintain to withstand their daily preparation of healthy, delicious
and reasonably priced meals for themselves and their families as well (Benn, 2014). Besides the
industry and the government, households also have a major role to play in guaranteeing that they
consume a safe, healthy and nutritious food. Having property food-related knowledge by the
households will also influence the industry and the government ability to make decisions on the
production of food, its consumption and how it can be regulated. Better food knowledge and how
the knowledge is put into practice will influence how key food strategy objectives will be
achieved.
There has always been a strong correlation between the healthy eating and dietary quality
and the knowledge on nutrition. Several studies that have been carried out by different groups
have always proven the same. Several efforts by industries, public awareness and educational
campaigns aimed at improving food healthiness and nutrition have been the main components of
previous initiatives of public health (Brooks & Begley, 2014). Some of these initiatives have
proved to be successful though there still is a long way to go in ensuring that all individuals are
made aware of the importance of food literacy. Food consumption habits of most adolescents and
children have never been pleasing at all. Majority lack the nutritional knowledge that may make
them pick on healthier foods. Children and even adolescents decide on what food to consume in

HEALTH AND DIET IN SOCIETY 3
accordance to which one tastes sweeter. Because of this, they end up consuming unbalanced diet
meals over and over. Daily consumption of unbalanced meals may result to unhealthy lifestyles
leading lifestyle diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke etc. most parents
have also played a major role for the declining food literacy. Parents should be the role models to
their children and give directions on what they should do in order to achieve healthy living. The
parents never consider involving the family in food preparation, therefore, reduces the food
preparation skills and knowledge among the younger household members (Pendergast &
Dewhurst, 2012).
Health outcomes have always been a subset of health literacy and thus food literacy
influences these outcomes in many ways. Whenever better knowledge and behaviours towards
storage of food and handling are well observed, then food literacy will greatly impact on the
safety of food consumed by us. Many households do not employ food labelling information and
knowledge which should help improve their diets (Cullen et al, 2015). Due to this, many
individuals from several households are victims of poor diets and therefore increased risks to
their health. Poor cooking skills by many households have also contributed to poor diets and
poor health outcomes, therefore a lot of effort should be put on improving the cooking skills in
order to ensure that a healthier diet is achieved for all households. Food illiteracy can result in
little dietary knowledge which is a big determinant of food and meal choices. The little dietary
knowledge has always resulted in poor decision making on the type of foods to consume
resulting in poor health. Improving food literacy will, therefore, help reduce these challenges to
diet and proper health. Many Australian citizens seem to have a perfect general understanding of
food, nutrition and health yet they lack a proper understanding of the facts and details of how
they are related. Several surveys have shown that household knowledge on nutrition specifically