Association of diet-related knowledge, attitude, behaviors and self-rated health among Chinese adults: a population-based study

Background: Diet and nutrition play an important role in one’s health status. The objectives of this study were to (a) determine knowledge, attitude, and behaviors (KABs) related to diet among a sample of Chinese adults, and (b) assess the association between diet-related KABs and self-rated health.Methods: We analyzed the 2015 CHNS data. Individuals aged 18 years and older were included as study subjects (n = 12,814). Five variables were selected to assess diet-related knowledge, attitude, and behaviors. Comparison of diet-related KABs in urban and rural was conducted using chi-square test. Ordinal logistic regression was conducted to quantify the association between diet-related KABs and self-rated health.Results: The awareness proportion for Chinese diet pagoda/DGCR was 27.1%, and only 34.3% of the subjects were assessed as having adequate dietary knowledge literacy. 24.3% reported positive attitude towards healthy diet. 27.6% and 65.9% reported the behavior of actively looking for nutrition knowledge and eating fruit & vegetables, respectively. Chi-square test indicated that rural residents experienced significant poorer diet-related knowledge, attitude, and behaviors than urban (all p-values < 0.01). Adjusted ORs with 95% CI revealed significant association between diet-related KABs and self-rated health.Conclusions: Chinese adults experienced poor diet-related knowledge, attitude, and behaviors, while rural residents were significantly worse than urban. Better diet-related knowledge, attitude, and behaviors was associated with higher self-rated health.