Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Given rising levels of obesity and poor eating habits, food education is needed to enable Canadians to make informed choices in a complex food landscape. "Food literacy" provides individuals with specialized skills and knowledge that enable them to make better choices about what they eat, contributing to improved long-term health and wellbeing. Food literacy programs are growing in popularity in public health, but they still face significant barriers that prevent effective use. This presentation examines existing research on food literacy to identify factors that both prevent and promote the successful implementation of food literacy programs. This information was collected through a systematic literature review (scoping review) of academic and non-academic research on the topic of food literacy. The search located 1049 documents, of which 28 were identified as unique studies reporting factors that both promote and prevent successful food literacy programming. These factors were recorded, along with information on study type, country of origin, and population targeted. The results of the study demonstrate that a there are wide variety of factors affecting the design and use of food literacy programs: study types are diverse; the largest number of studies are Canadian based; and there is a dual focus on adult skill and knowledge acquisition and the design of child/adolescent focused educational programming. These results suggest that more work is needed to understand and address this wide variety of factors and suggest best practices for improving how programs are designed and carried out. A more thorough understanding of the challenges facing food literacy initiatives contributes not only to improved program content, but also to improved long-term individual and population health.