IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v83y2019icp104-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unravelling the food literacy puzzle: Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Palumbo, Rocco
  • Adinolfi, Paola
  • Annarumma, Carmela
  • Catinello, Giuseppina
  • Tonelli, Marco
  • Troiano, Ersilia
  • Vezzosi, Stefania
  • Manna, Rosalba

Abstract

Food literacy – i.e. the ability to collect, understand, process, and use relevant information to navigate the food system – is a key concept inspiring food policies across the World. While scholars agree in discussing the interplay between individual food literacy skills and the health, social, environmental, political, cultural, and economic aspects of food consumption, evidence on the extent and consequences of limited food literacy is scattered. This paper tries to shed light on this issue, proposing a measurement approach to assess the food literacy skills of a representative sample of the Italian population. The research findings suggest that problematic food literacy is prevailing: elderly, people with low education, and those suffering from financial deprivation are more likely to show limited food literacy. Inadequate food literacy concurs in producing impaired health status. Integrated policy interventions are needed to improve individual food literacy skills and to support the establishment of a just and sustainable food system.

Suggested Citation

  • Palumbo, Rocco & Adinolfi, Paola & Annarumma, Carmela & Catinello, Giuseppina & Tonelli, Marco & Troiano, Ersilia & Vezzosi, Stefania & Manna, Rosalba, 2019. "Unravelling the food literacy puzzle: Evidence from Italy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 104-115.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:83:y:2019:i:c:p:104-115
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.12.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919218302148
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.12.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gracia, Azucena & de Magistris, Tiziana, 2008. "The demand for organic foods in the South of Italy: A discrete choice model," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 386-396, October.
    2. Aazam Doustmohammadian & Nasrin Omidvar & Nastaran Keshavarz-Mohammadi & Morteza Abdollahi & Maryam Amini & Hassan Eini-Zinab, 2017. "Developing and validating a scale to measure Food and Nutrition Literacy (FNLIT) in elementary school children in Iran," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Lymbery, Philip & Stevenson, Peter & McKenna, Carol, 2015. "Europe Needs a Food not Feed Policy," 148th Seminar, November 30-December 1, 2015, The Hague, The Netherlands 229269, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. McFadden, Jonathan R. & Huffman, Wallace E., 2017. "Willingness-to-pay for natural, organic, and conventional foods: The effects of information and meaningful labels," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 214-232.
    5. Carmela Annarumma & Rocco Palumbo, 2016. "Paving the way for digital food literacy: A critical review of the literature," MECOSAN, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(100), pages 57-75.
    6. Hirvonen, Kalle & Hoddinott, John & Minten, Bart & Stifel, David, 2017. "Children’s Diets, Nutrition Knowledge, and Access to Markets," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 303-315.
    7. Lisa Jordan Powell & Hannah Wittman, 2018. "Farm to school in British Columbia: mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 193-206, March.
    8. Palumbo, Rocco & Annarumma, Carmela & Adinolfi, Paola & Musella, Marco & Piscopo, Gabriella, 2016. "The Italian Health Literacy Project: Insights from the assessment of health literacy skills in Italy," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(9), pages 1087-1094.
    9. Burchi, Francesco & De Muro, Pasquale, 2016. "From food availability to nutritional capabilities: Advancing food security analysis," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 10-19.
    10. Visschers, Vivianne H.M. & Hartmann, Christina & Leins-Hess, Rebecca & Dohle, Simone & Siegrist, Michael, 2013. "A consumer segmentation of nutrition information use and its relation to food consumption behaviour," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 71-80.
    11. Bublitz, Melissa G. & Peracchio, Laura A. & Andreasen, Alan R. & Kees, Jeremy & Kidwell, Blair & Miller, Elizabeth Gelfand & Motley, Carol M. & Peter, Paula C. & Rajagopal, Priyali & Scott, Maura L. &, 2013. "Promoting positive change: Advancing the food well-being paradigm," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1211-1218.
    12. Eden, Sally & Bear, Christopher & Walker, Gordon, 2008. "The sceptical consumer? Exploring views about food assurance," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 624-630, December.
    13. Aya Kimura, 2011. "Food education as food literacy: privatized and gendered food knowledge in contemporary Japan," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(4), pages 465-482, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nadia Steils & Zakia Obaidalahe, 2020. "“Social food”: Food literacy co-construction and distortion on social media," Post-Print hal-03097928, HAL.
    2. Andrea Begley & Ellen Paynter & Lucy M. Butcher & Vanessa Bobongie & Satvinder S. Dhaliwal, 2019. "Identifying Participants Who Would Benefit the Most from an Adult Food-literacy Program," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-16, April.
    3. Steils, Nadia & Obaidalahe, Zakia, 2020. "“Social food”: Food literacy co-construction and distortion on social media," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Palkovič, Jozef & Fusková, Martina, 2016. "Food Security: Overview Of Current Situation In Selected European Countries," Journal of Central European Green Innovation, Karoly Robert University College, vol. 4(3), pages 1-18.
    2. Carmela Annarumma & Rocco Palumbo & Ersilia Troiano & Stefania Vezzosi, 2017. "Una misurazione "euristica" dell?alfabetizzazione alimentare: alcuni spunti esplorativi," MECOSAN, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2017(102), pages 61-83.
    3. Yasuo Ohe & Shinichi Kurihara & Shinpei Shimoura, 2014. "Evaluating willingness to become a food education volunteer among urban residents in Japan: toward a participatory food policy," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Giovanna Sacchi & Vincenzina Caputo & Rodolfo M. Nayga, 2015. "Alternative Labeling Programs and Purchasing Behavior toward Organic Foods: The Case of the Participatory Guarantee Systems in Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-20, June.
    5. Aurino, Elisabetta & Morrow, Virginia, 2018. "“Food prices were high, and the dal became watery”. Mixed-method evidence on household food insecurity and children’s diets in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 211-224.
    6. Ousmane Z. Traoré & Lota D. Tamini & Bernard Korai, 2023. "Willingness to pay for credence attributes associated with agri‐food products—Evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 71(3-4), pages 303-327, September.
    7. Aurino, Elisabetta & Fledderjohann, Jasmine & Vellakkal, Sukumar, 2019. "Inequalities in adolescent learning: Does the timing and persistence of food insecurity at home matter?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 94-108.
    8. Sadowski, Arkadiusz & Baer-Nawrocka, Agnieszka, 2016. "Food Self-Sufficiency Of The European Union Countries – Energetic Approach," Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development, University of Life Sciences, Poznan, Poland, vol. 40(2).
    9. Marie-Eve Laporte & Géraldine Michel & Sophie Rieunier, 2017. "Towards a better understanding of eating behaviour through the concept of Perception of Nutritional Risk," Post-Print halshs-02923251, HAL.
    10. Samia Ayyub & Xuhui Wang & Muhammad Asif & Rana Muhammad Ayyub, 2018. "Antecedents of Trust in Organic Foods: The Mediating Role of Food Related Personality Traits," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-17, October.
    11. Rebecca Pera & Giampaolo Viglia, 2017. "Can snacking be healthy? A comparison between coeliacs and health conscious food consumers," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2017(3), pages 79-99.
    12. Jessica Aschemann-Witzel & Stephan Zielke, 2017. "Can't Buy Me Green? A Review of Consumer Perceptions of and Behavior Toward the Price of Organic Food," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 211-251, March.
    13. Amaza, P., 2018. "Impact on household food security of promoting sustainable agriculture among farming households in Borno State, Nigeria," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277204, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Mathieu Lambotte & Stephane De Cara & Valentin Bellassen, 2020. "Once a quality-food consumer, always a quality-food consumer? Consumption patterns of organic, label rouge, and geographical indications in French scanner data," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 101(1), pages 147-172.
    15. Nokhaiz Tariq Khan & Javed Aslam & Ateeq Abdul Rauf & Yun Bae Kim, 2022. "The Case of South Korean Airlines-Within-Airlines Model: Helping Full-Service Carriers Challenge Low-Cost Carriers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, March.
    16. Koistinen, Laura & Pouta, Eija & Heikkila, Jaakko & Forsman-Hugg, Sari & Kotro, Jaana & Makela, Jarmo & Niva, M., 2011. "Impact of meat type, methods of production, fat content, price and carbon footprint information on meat choice," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114710, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Fander Falconí & Juan Cadillo Benalcazar & Freddy Llive Cóndor & Jesus Ramos-Martin & Belén Liger, 2015. "Pérdida de autosuficiencia alimentaria y posibilidades de complementariedad agrícola en los países de UNASUR," Documentos de Trabajo CEPROEC 2015_06, Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales, Centro de Prospectiva Estratégica.
    18. Wang, Jie & Zhang, Xiadan & Jiang, Jing, 2022. "Healthy-Angular, unhealthy-circular: Effects of the fit between shapes and healthiness on consumer food preferences," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 740-750.
    19. Yibo Luan & Wenquan Zhu & Xuefeng Cui & Günther Fischer & Terence P. Dawson & Peijun Shi & Zhenke Zhang, 2019. "Cropland yield divergence over Africa and its implication for mitigating food insecurity," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 707-734, June.
    20. Latvala, Terhi & Mandolesi, Serena & Nicholas, Phillipa & Zanoli, Raffaele, 2013. "Identifying Expectations for Innovations in Management Practices in Dairy Sector by Using Q Methodology," 2013 International European Forum, February 18-22, 2013, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 164734, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:83:y:2019:i:c:p:104-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.