Food literacy is a sub-field of health literacy with a concept under construction, but corresponds to the ability to read, understand, and judge the quality of information; to seek and exchange knowledge related to the topics of food and nutrition; to buy and prepare food; to critically reflect on factors which influence personal choices about food and understand the impact of these choices on society. In turn, the ACP model is a three-factor communication model (assertiveness, clarity, and positivity) that aims to optimize education based on health literacy. The aim of this chapter is to present a proposal for food guidance which combines the foundations of the ACP model and food literacy for the different life cycles. The guidelines for each cycle were adapted to the ACP model. In conclusion, the ACP model can be applied to food literacy actions in any life cycle. However, it is worth mentioning that the professional's communicational behavior needs to be aligned with the assertiveness competence so that such actions are in fact effective.
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The definition of nutritional literacy or food literacy has been changing as the field has evolved, especially in recent years. In order to better understand this evolution, it is important to align the proposed concepts with the definition adopted for the main field of health literacy. Although not consensual and still under construction, one of the widely cited concepts is that of Sørensen et al. (2012). These authors define that health literacy is the knowledge, motivation and skills of people to access, understand, evaluate and apply health information in order to make judgments and decisions in daily life regarding health care, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve their quality of life, and with this applying to all life cycles.
The literacy applied to food and nutrition was called nutritional literacy for a long time. However, discussions began to arise about whether the most appropriate name would be food literacy. Krause et al. (2018) carried out a systematic review on the topic, proposing that food literacy is the most appropriate name for this sub-field of health literacy. For these authors, nutritional literacy corresponds to skills in understanding nutritional information and is a prerequisite for the skills necessary for food literacy. In turn, this corresponds to the ability to read, understand and judge quality of information; to seek and exchange knowledge related to the topics of food and nutrition; to buy and prepare food; to critically reflect on factors which influence personal choices about food and understand the impact of these choices on society.
Vettori et al. (2019) subsequently carried out a scoping review also focusing on these concepts, culminating with a conceptual proposal for food and nutritional literacy: “F&NL could be described as a multidimensional concept which implies an individual dimension (knowledge, motivation, competences, and awareness), as well as the relationship between individuals and their context aimed at consuming foods assuring nutritional health and a sustainable food system”. It is noticed that the cited concepts of food literacy corroborate the aforementioned concept by Sørensen et al. (2012) about health literacy and contemplate the functional, interactive and critical dimensions of health literacy, so well explained in Nutbeam (2000).
In facing this discussion, which is also not consensual, it becomes a challenge to carry out educational actions based on food literacy. The evolution of the food literacy field is still timid in relation to its approach of the target audience, whatever the adopted communication strategy. Therefore, it can be considered that by following the fundamentals of health literacy regarding verbal, written and digital communication, and directing the content to food and nutrition topics, it will adequately enable an empowerment of guidelines by the target population.
In this context, incorporating the ACP model (Vaz de Almeida, 2016), which is the use of a three-factor model using Assertiveness, Clarity and Positivity in an interdependent and aggregated way, into the education process in the food and nutrition field is even more challenging.
What is the connection between food literacy and the ACP model? The ACP model (Vaz de Almeida; 2016) is a three-factor communication model (assertiveness, language clarity and positivity) which aims to optimize education based on health literacy; in other words, it is “to place literate health education into practice”. There have been several publications focusing on the ACP model since its first proposition (Almeida, 2018; Belim & Almeida, 2018b; Almeida, 2020; Almeida & Belim, 2021; Vaz de Almeida, 2016).