Parent's food literacy and adolescents nutrition literacy influence household's food security and adolescent's malnutrition and anemia: Findings from a national representative cross sectional study.

Food and nutrition literacy are widely fundamental to improve the food security and reduce the double burden of malnutrition and iron deficiency in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed (1) to assess the nutrition literacy (NL) of Lebanese adolescents and their parents' food literacy (FL), (2) to investigate the impacts of adolescents' NL and parental FL on (a) the household food security, (b) the adolescents' self-reported food security, and (c) the adolescents' nutrition status with a focus on malnutrition and anemia. A national representative sample of 450 parent-adolescent dyads [parents: mean age ± standard deviation (SD) = 46.0 ± 7.0, mothers: 59.0%; adolescents: mean age ± SD = 15.0 ± 3.0, girls: 54.6%] were interviewed. Anthropometric and blood hemoglobin measurements were performed for adolescents. The Arab Family Food Security Scale and the Adolescent-Level Food Security Scale were used. Around 45.0% of the adolescents were nutritionally illiterate, and nearly half (47.8%) of parents had poor FL. Around 68.2 and 54.0% of the households and adolescents were food insecure, respectively. Moreover, 6.7, 4.7, 32.2, and 16.7% of the adolescents were stunted, thin, overweight/obese, and anemic, respectively. Poor parental FL increased the risk of household food insecurity (FI) by 2.7 times, Improvements in FL and NL are promising to mitigate FI malnutrition in Lebanon.

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Copyright © 2022 Hoteit, Mohsen, Hanna-Wakim and Sacre.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.