Domestic cooking and food skills: A review

ABSTRACT

Domestic cooking skills (CS) and food skills (FS) encompass multiple components, yet there is a lack of consensus on their constituent parts, inter-relatedness, or measurement, leading to limited empirical support for their role in influencing dietary quality. This review assessed the measurement of CS and FS in adults (>16 years); critically examining study designs, psychometric properties of measures, theoretical basis, and associations of CS/FS with diet. Electronic databases (PsychInfo), published reports, and systematic reviews on cooking and home food preparation interventions provided 834 articles of which 26 met the inclusion criteria. Multiple CS/FS measures were identified across three study designs—qualitative, cross-sectional, and dietary interventions—conducted from 1998 to 2013. Most measures were not theory-based, limited psychometric data were available, with little consistency of items or scales used for CS/FS measurements. Some positive associations between CS/FS and fruit and vegetables intake were reported, though lasting dietary changes were uncommon. The role of psycho-social (e.g., gender, attitudes) and external factors (e.g., food availability) on CS/FS is discussed. A conceptual framework of CS/FS components is presented for future measurement facilitation, which highlights the role for CS/FS on food-related behavior and dietary quality. This will aid future dietary intervention design.

KEYWORDS:

• Cooking
• food
• skills
• food literacy
• measurement
• scale
• diet

Acknowledgments

MR, MD, and LM were involved in the conception of the review, LM conducted the majority of literature searches (LH search Mintel and Keynote), LM drafted the manuscript, and MC and MD edited it. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

This material is based upon work supported by safefood, The Food Safety Promotion Board, under Grant No. 11/2013. The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Aileen McGloin, Sara Elsami, and Marian Faughnan from safefood, particularly with regard to their research conducted for the report Food Skills: Definitions, Influences and Relationship with Health (safefood, September 2014).

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Notes

¹ http://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/eating-well/tips-eating-well/healthy-eating-budget (accessed July 7, 2015). http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/index.html (accessed July 7, 2015). http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/healthy-eating/Pages/Healthyeating.aspx (accessed July 7, 2015).