Sustainability of well-being through literacy. The effects of food literacy on sustainability of well-being

Health literacy is a "magic word" among both scholars and practitioners. In general terms, it indicates the ability to collect, process, and understand basic health information to properly navigate the health system and enhance well-being. Food literacy is conceived as a set of skills which is strongly related to health literacy, concerning the convenient use of food. Notwithstanding, to the knowledge of the Author, until now food literacy has been poorly discussed by the scientific and professional literatures as a key determinant of sustainability of well-being. This paper is aimed at providing several insights about the role played by food literacy in the protection and promotion of well-being, paving the way for both conceptual and empirical developments. For this purpose, a systematic literature review has been conducted, which, on the one hand, confirmed that food literacy is a blooming field in the scientific literature and, on the other hand, supported the limited understanding about its effects on well-being. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.