Navigation
How a 7-Week food literacy cooking program affects cooking confidence and mental health: Findings of a quasi-experimental controlled intervention trial
This 2022 study examined the effectiveness of a 7-week cooking program in improving the cooking confidence of healthy Australian adults. Cooking interventions aim to help individuals develop their food literacy skills, and increase preparation of home-cooked meals, potentially having a positive impact on health. Thus, this study also assessed whether the participants’ behaviors surrounding food change, and how mental health is affected. Subjects who took part in this cooking program showed enhanced cooking confidence and satisfaction, ability to change eating habits and overcome lifestyle barriers. The intervention also improved people’s mental and general health. However, these modifications were not seen in the control group. No changes were observed for acquisition and consumption of food, or nutrition knowledge in either group. To summarize, participants of this 7-week cooking program benefited from higher cooking confidence and better mental and general health but did not change their dietary behavior. This demonstrates that greater effort is needed to recruit people with below-average nutrition knowledge and interest in cooking, to increase adoption of nutrition-related behaviors associated with better mental health. [NPID: cooking program, cooking intervention, eating behaviors, healthy diet, diet, cooking confidence, food literacy, mental health, home-cooking]
Year: 2022
