Relationship between use of health foods and health literacy in 40-60 years old adults

Abstract

The ability to examine health information called health literacy is important. However, the use of so-called health foods is left to the decision-making and self-responsibility of the user, and judgment on health risks is also required. Therefore, a questionnaire survey was conducted to verify how the use of health foods was related to health literacy. Binary logistic regression analysis and multiple regression analysis were applied to identify the reasons for the relevant questions. Remarkable gender differences were found between health literacy and the consumption of health foods. Health literacy is commonly categorized into three literacies as functional, interactive and critical health literacy. Regarding use factors, it was shown that the interactive health literacy is composed of transmission and criticism was significant, it indicated that the probability of consuming healthy foods increased 1.4 times by each standard deviation of this interactive health literacy. In contrast, no significance was observed in women. Regarding factors related to the increase in use frequency, the interaction between transmission and criticism was significant among men, and the interaction of the function and transmission was significant among women. In other words, men used health foods after obtaining information and making critical decisions regarding them, while women tended to be more interested in health foods for beauty-related reasons. Therefore, health food information was effective for promoting the safe use of health foods by enhancing individual health literacy by emphasizing the different points of interest for men and women. Furthermore, it was thought that supplementing the lack of health literacy with education would lead to the safe use of health foods.