Evaluation of an adult food literacy program

Food literacy programs aim to improve planning, selection, preparation and eating of healthy foods. Governments are investing in these programs to improve dietary intakes at a population level. There are evaluation challenges in the design, methods and interpretation of results as these programs are...

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Main Authors: Begley, Andrea, Dhaliwal, Satvinder
Format: Conference Paper
Published: 2019
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80028
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author Begley, Andrea
Dhaliwal, Satvinder
author_facet Begley, Andrea
Dhaliwal, Satvinder
author_sort Begley, Andrea
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Food literacy programs aim to improve planning, selection, preparation and eating of healthy foods. Governments are investing in these programs to improve dietary intakes at a population level. There are evaluation challenges in the design, methods and interpretation of results as these programs are not research trials. Food Sensations® for Adults (FSA) is a free four-week nutrition and cooking program funded by the Western Australia Department of Health targeted at low to middle income participants who would like to improve their food literacy. The aim of this research was to assess the effectiveness of FSA in improving the food literacy and other selected dietary behaviours. Methods used were to examine the mean self-reported change in participants using factor scores and to use tertile stratification to calculate change in those with low food literacy at the start of the program. Pre and post questionnaires were developed from validated tools and surveys. Statistical analysis identified a mean increase in post program scores for domains of Planning (9.7%), Selection (25.1%) and Preparation (11.9%)(p<0.001) (n=1092). There was a significant increase in self-reported fruit (¼ serve per day) and vegetables (½ serve per day) (p<0.0001). Of those classified with low food literacy, 61% significantly improved post-program scores for Planning, 74% for Selection and 65% for Preparation. FSA is effective in improving food literacy and dietary behaviours and these results add to the evidence base as to the level of effectiveness of these programs and for whom they might need to be targeted at in the future.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-800282021-03-17T08:27:35Z Evaluation of an adult food literacy program Begley, Andrea Dhaliwal, Satvinder Food literacy programs aim to improve planning, selection, preparation and eating of healthy foods. Governments are investing in these programs to improve dietary intakes at a population level. There are evaluation challenges in the design, methods and interpretation of results as these programs are not research trials. Food Sensations® for Adults (FSA) is a free four-week nutrition and cooking program funded by the Western Australia Department of Health targeted at low to middle income participants who would like to improve their food literacy. The aim of this research was to assess the effectiveness of FSA in improving the food literacy and other selected dietary behaviours. Methods used were to examine the mean self-reported change in participants using factor scores and to use tertile stratification to calculate change in those with low food literacy at the start of the program. Pre and post questionnaires were developed from validated tools and surveys. Statistical analysis identified a mean increase in post program scores for domains of Planning (9.7%), Selection (25.1%) and Preparation (11.9%)(p<0.001) (n=1092). There was a significant increase in self-reported fruit (¼ serve per day) and vegetables (½ serve per day) (p<0.0001). Of those classified with low food literacy, 61% significantly improved post-program scores for Planning, 74% for Selection and 65% for Preparation. FSA is effective in improving food literacy and dietary behaviours and these results add to the evidence base as to the level of effectiveness of these programs and for whom they might need to be targeted at in the future. 2019 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80028 restricted
spellingShingle Begley, Andrea
Dhaliwal, Satvinder
Evaluation of an adult food literacy program
title Evaluation of an adult food literacy program
title_full Evaluation of an adult food literacy program
title_fullStr Evaluation of an adult food literacy program
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of an adult food literacy program
title_short Evaluation of an adult food literacy program
title_sort evaluation of an adult food literacy program
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80028