Relationship between knowledge of reasons underlying nutritional messages and reported compliance

Subjects (48 male and 52 female) were shown nutritional messages and asked about their frequency of compliance and how this behaviour is beneficial to health. Scores were calculated for both knowledge and behaviour. The correlation between the two scores, after adjustment for effects of social class, age and gender, was 0.57 (P < 0.001). Although most previous research has failed to relate nutritional knowledge to behaviour, this may depend on the type of knowledge and the method of questioning and this deserves further study.