Health vs. Nutrition Literacy: Why You Should Know the Difference

Having a high degree of health and nutrition literacy are key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But what does that mean, and how can you apply this knowledge to improve your daily habits?  

Although these concepts may sound complex, they’re actually quite simple and easy to remember. They are generally defined in the following terms: 

“Health Literacy” is the degree to which one has the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. 

“Nutrition Literacy” is the degree to which one has the ability to obtain, process, and understand nutrition information and skills needed in order to make healthful decisions.

So what’s the difference between the two? Having a high degree of health literacy allows you to make good and healthy choices in all aspects of your daily life, while nutrition literacy allows you to be selective of what you consume that will contribute greatly to your overall physical health. So think of health literacy as the more broader concept, while nutrition literacy serves as a subcategory of being health literate.  

In other words, if you’re able to pick and choose the foods you consume based on your knowledge on their nutritional value, you have good nutrition literacy. And if you’re able to do that, in addition to making healthy physical and lifestyle choices (like making sure you exercise on a daily basis, spending time outside to absorb key nutrients from the sun, etc), you possess good health literacy. 

Bottom line: it is important to learn and possess this knowledge not only for ourselves, but to pass on to our loved ones and to those who aren’t fortunate enough to have this information readily available. There are multiple ways to learn and spread information about health and nutrition literacy, and www.nutrition.gov is an excellent supplemental source that provides many resources to educate yourself and others on making healthy decisions to improve your quality of life. There are also ways to get involved in helping your community learn to make these healthy life choices. Educating yourself is always first priority, and subsequently volunteering at your local food bank or family clinic will allow for you to pass your knowledge on to those who cannot access the information for themselves.  

You can help provide the best nutritional options available if you possess a high degree of health and nutrition literacy, contributing to the fight against food insecurity in Los Angeles and beyond one healthy step at a time!