engleski

Developing Food and Nutrition Literacy with the Croatian Facebook Group, „Homemade Food for Babies“

Food literacy and nutrition literacy might look like new buzz words in the already long list of literacies. However, food choices are important in the context of healthy living. There is a large amount of information about preparing meals at home as many professional and amateur chefs, fitness trainers, and doctors have joined efforts in informing people how to prepare healthy meals. Parents play a crucial role in supporting healthy eating habits of their children, and the possible influence of the Facebook groups on their food choices is worth investigating. The concepts of food literacy and nutrition literacy are specific forms of health literacy (Krause et al., 2016 ; Gibbs et al. 2016). Nutrition literacy focuses on the understanding of nutrition information. Krause et al. (2016) concluded that food literacy additionally includes applying information on food choices and critically reflecting on the effect of food choices on personal health. In the context of participatory digital environments, it is important to take into account the additional concepts of collaborative producing and sharing activities from the metaliteracy framework (Mackey and Jacobson, 2011). The core ideas of information literacy are present in all of the mentioned literacies. This research is analyzing a specialized Croatian Facebook group with more than 108.000 members named „Homemade food for babies“. Some of the administrators are educated in the field of nutrition, and the group follows the World Health Organization’s recommendations how to introduce food to babies. Members contribute with their recipes but also ask for advice and collaboratively discuss nutrition and related topics. The aim of this research is to analyze possible benefits for the group members in changing their attitudes and perceived behavior related to food and nutrition literacy. The research questions are: 1) which topics are represented in the group documents? 2) What challenges the users and administrators are facing when seeking and sharing verified information? 3) How do users perceive the benefits from the group, specifically their behavioral changes towards healthier food choices? A multi-method approach is applied with content analysis of 131 group documents, a survey with 1081 members of the group, and an interview with the main administrator. The results imply that the group is highly valued by the majority of the surveyed group members and has a profound perceived impact on their everyday food choices. The group documents contain descriptions of nutritive values and ways of preparing meals, specific nutrition diet for health problems, and related topics. The main administrator uses credible sources to give informed advices. The challenges that the users and the main administrator are facing when seeking and sharing information include sometimes-false information from unverified sources, especially regarding food allergies, and opposite advices from various experts. Based on the results of factor analyses of the survey data, perceived food literacy is operationalised as a combination of nutritive literacy and healthy cooking behavior. The parents that are often using the group content (recipes, guidelines, advice) are enhancing their perceived food literacy. Visibly active participation and membership duration are less beneficial. Reading the group documents is crucial for nutrition literacy, and using the recipes is important for healthy cooking behavior. Additionally, motivation and using expert advice are predictors of both of those components of food literacy. In conclusion, the users that are engaged in using the group contents are enhancing their perceived food literacy, by improving nutrition literacy aspects of seeking and choosing the credible information, and by refining their healthy cooking behavior.

food literacy, nutritional literacy

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