Cultivating Environmentally Sustainable Behavior: the Role of Agro-Ecological Literacy in the Formation of Healthy Nutritional Behavior

This research evaluated the factors affecting healthy nutrition behavior in 154 teachers and parents in Tehran using the concepts of nutritional literacy and agro-ecological literacy and applying a health belief model. Accordingly, a 60-question questionnaire was designed with 6 subscales of "food and nutrition knowledge", "functional skills", "interactive skills", "advocacy", "critical analysis of information" and "food label reading skills". And data were extracted through personal interview. The results were evaluated using AMOS software and structural equation model. Our findings showed that 3.9% of the respondents had a “good” level of food and nutrition literacy. While, 37.66% and 58.44% of the respondents had the “average” and “weak” level of food and nutrition literacy, respectively. Based on the concepts of the health belief model, the respondents had a significant level of subjective perception regarding healthy nutritional behavior. Also, these people showed a high desire to gain knowledge through the society and existing social media. Based on the findings of this research, the most important limiting factors in the occurrence of healthy nutrition behavior are the level of “agroecological literacy” and then the level of “food and nutrition literacy”. So that, based on the results of the model used in this research, despite the role of several factors in the occurrence of human behavior and the complexity of the actions of people in society, “agro-ecological literacy” and “food and nutrition literacy” showed a significant contribution to the occurrence of nutritional behavior. Therefore, according to the results of this research, in order to promote healthy nutritional behavior in the society, we can emphasize the need to pay attention to increasing the level of agro-ecological literacy as well as food and nutrition literacy of the society by expanding appropriate educational programs. The results of this research point to the necessity of a link between environmental awareness and sustainable agriculture to reduce the gap between healthy food production and consumption structures.