P051 The Level of Food Literacy and its Association with Food Intake and Happiness in Life Among Seoul Citizens: Results from Seoul Food Survey 2021.

Food literacy(FL) is originally derived from health literacy and includes personal skills and knowledge in various aspects of food consumption. Recently, the authors have proposed a broader definition of FL, including the ability to select food by considering community, society, and the environment as well as individual functional competency. It consists of nutrition and safety (NS), cultural and relational (CS), and socio-ecological (SE) domains. To identify the level of FL among Seoul citizens and the association with food intake and happiness in life Cross-sectional study using a representative sample of 4,039 citizens FL questionnaire was comprised of 33 questions. Happiness in life, satisfaction on food, and importance of food on pursuing happiness were measured with a scale of 0 (most negative) to 10 (most positive). Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were performed to analyze the distribution of FL scores according to the sociodemographic factors. The analysis was conducted using Stata/SE 17.0. Men, students, people who are 18-29 years or 70 years and older had the lowest scores for all domains of FL. The highest quartile group of the NS scores had higher probabilities of consuming adequate servings of vegetables(Q4 vs. Q1, OR = 1.69) and fruits(Q4 vs. Q1, OR = 1.83), which both showed significant linear trends (P <0.001). Also, as the overall FL score increased, the happiness in life increased by 0.92(Q4 vs. Q1) points, the satisfaction on food increased by 1.13(Q4 vs. Q1) points, and the importance of food on pursuing happiness increased by 0.87(Q4 vs. Q1) points. All of three domains of FL showed a linear increase with happiness, satisfaction, and importance of food after controlling for various sociodemographic factors (P < 0.001). This study identified the vulnerable groups of FL and found that FL is closely related to happiness in life and food-related life satisfaction after controlling for other covariates. It is necessary to develop a program to improve FL especially for vulnerable groups for happier and more satisfactory life. Government of Seoul; National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education(2021R1I1A306024811, 2021R1A6A1A03044501) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]