Imagine trying to make healthy food choices without understanding the labels or the basics of nutrition. This review examined how health literacy, food literacy, and nutritional literacy work together in adults. It found that these three types of understanding are consistently linked to what people eat, what they know about food, and how they decide what to buy or cook.
Some evidence suggests these skills influence each other. If you can read a nutrition label, that might help you understand food sources, and vice versa. However, the study did not report specific numbers or exact strength of these links. The research involved 17 different studies, but they used different tools to measure these skills.
A major challenge is that researchers rarely captured the full, complex nature of food and nutritional literacy. Most studies focused on just one part of these skills rather than the whole picture. Because the measurement tools varied so much, it is hard to say exactly how one skill predicts another. This means we should treat these literacies as distinct but related abilities.
Despite these measurement challenges, the takeaway is hopeful. Interventions that are sensitive to literacy levels and aware of the context can improve diet quality. Addressing both individual skills and structural factors like access to healthy food can lead to better health outcomes, depending on a person's starting point and their economic situation.