Integrating factual nutritional knowledge and healthy eating practice

The concept of nutritional knowledge needs to be analysed in a multidimensional way. Previous approaches have concentrated on measuring specific content domains. This study is a pilot study aiming to test a questionnaire using variables derived from the theoretical basis of a multidimensional approach to nutritional knowledge. A sample of young Finnish mothers (n= 42) was shown to be very health-conscious but still had certain difficulties in integrating factual knowledge and practice. This may imply that if nutritional education ignores practical knowledge and favours factual knowledge, the ordinary homemaker can have difficulties in relating nutritional knowledge to food behaviour.