The initial development and validation of a child-oriented food literacy questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Nutrition
• Educational Psychology
• Food Systems Science

Background:

• Food literacy is crucial for healthy eating habits and sustainable food choices.
• Assessing food literacy in children requires age-appropriate and validated instruments.
• The farm-to-fork concept provides a comprehensive framework for understanding food systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Dutch Children's Food Literacy Questionnaire (DCFLQ) for children aged 8-12 years.
• To evaluate the reliability and construct validity of the DCFLQ.
• To provide a tool for monitoring children's food literacy and evaluating nutrition interventions.

Main Methods:

• Development involved item pool creation with experts and children.
• Validation included reliability (internal consistency, test-retest) and construct validity assessments.
• A total of 11 experts and 608 children participated in the development and validation phases.

Main Results:

• The final 29-item DCFLQ demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.80) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.81).
• DCFLQ scores positively correlated with age, suggesting higher food literacy in older children.
• The questionnaire covers key farm-to-fork principles: production, distribution, consumption, waste, and sustainability.

Conclusions:

• The DCFLQ is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing food literacy in Dutch children.
• It serves as a valuable tool for nutrition education program evaluation and longitudinal monitoring.
• International consensus on food literacy assessment tools is needed to enable cross-cultural comparisons.