Emerging adults' food media experiences: Preferences, opportunities, and barriers for food literacy promotion

This study aims to understand how and why emerging adults come into contact with food media messages, and what they perceive as positive and negative outcomes related to food literacy. Seven focus groups, stratified by gender and socio-economic status, with 37 emerging adults aged between 18 and 25 were conducted. Photovoice was used to reflect on participants' real-life food media experiences. Findings reveal that food media consumption is a combination of actively searching and incidentally encountering. The results suggest that food media messages attract emerging adults' attention by bringing content in an entertaining, engaging, and appealing way, and featuring popular food personalities. Finally, food media messages were perceived to both enhance and distort food literacy. The results show how food media messages for food literacy interventions can be designed in order to attract emerging adults' attention and fulfill their specific needs.

Automated summary

This study explores how and why emerging adults engage with food media messages and their perceptions of positive and negative outcomes related to food literacy. Seven focus groups were conducted with 37 emerging adults aged 18-25, divided by gender and socio-economic status. Photovoice was employed to reflect on participants' real-life experiences with food media. The findings indicate that food media consumption involves both active searching and incidental encountering. The results also suggest that attractive and engaging content, as well as featuring popular food personalities, capture the attention of emerging adults. Furthermore, food media messages were found to both enhance and distort food literacy. These findings highlight the potential for designing food media messages in food literacy interventions to cater to the needs and interests of emerging adults.