Background

Health literacy (HL) entails people's knowledge, motivation, and competences to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information necessary to make appropriate health decisions during the life course. Food literacy (FL), a subset of HL, refers to people’s knowledge and competences to meet the complex demands of a healthy and sustainable diet.

HL was demonstrated to be limited among adults aged 65 and over in Germany (Schaeffer et al., 2016) and a recent study on HL in older adults revealed that their HL levels have actually decreased in recent years (Hurrelmann et al., 2020). Moreover, 4 out of 10 adults in Germany between the ages of 60 and 69 have limited FL (Kolpatzik & Zaunbrecher, 2020).

Despite this, there is a conspicuous lack of evidence-based HL and FL interventions. The project “Enjoy eating and stay healthy together (GUSTO)” aims to contribute to active aging by promoting HL and FL of people aged 65 and over.

Description of Intervention

A participatory approach was used to develop and implement a 52-week program including 24 meetings of self-reliant, peer-moderated groups of older adults in Bavarian social service institutions. The intervention consisted of a total of 136 older adults (112 participants, 24 peer moderators) in 11 groups.

The intervention’s effect on HL and FL was measured using a German version of the HLS-EU-16 questionnaire and a German version of the Self-Perceived FL Scale (Poelman et al., 2018). Two questionnaire surveys were conducted in a pre-post comparison.

Results

119 older adults (mean age: 71.2 ± 6.7 years, male: 29.4%) completed the questionnaire in the first measurement. It is assumed that the percentage of older adults with insufficient or problematic HL will have dropped from 36.1% at the beginning of the intervention to 29,4% at the end and the percentage of older adults with limited FL will have dropped from 18.4% to 15,1%.

Conclusions

Self-reliant, peer-moderated groups are effective in engaging older adults to improve their HL and FL. In addition, the participants get involved more intensively in community life. This intervention is a first step towards overcoming the lack of evidence-based HL and FL promotion.