Knowledge and Commitment
Nutritional knowledge can generally be described as information concerning nutrients available in food. As such, it is concerned with understanding nutritional information that is normally provided in food labels. For example, a person may be considered to have nutritional knowledge if he or she is able to determine that a certain food contains fats, sugar, calcium or sodium among other food components. On the other hand, nutritional knowledge may be classified as procedural or declarative. Declarative nutritional knowledge relates to the ability to know the general purpose of a given diet (Worsley, 2002). For example, knowing that vitamins are important is considered declarative. Conversely, procedural nutritional knowledge is applying declarative knowledge to determine an appropriate diet. For example, choosing a healthy snack based on fat or sugar content is considered procedural. Such knowledge usually varies depending on the nature of an individual. For example, an athlete will be concerned with knowledge that helps in boosting muscles.
Nutritional commitment involves following the nutritional requirements to the letter. This means that it is involved with the correct intake of certain food, while knowing the exact amount of nutrients based on dieticians or nutritionists’ advice (Sizer & Whitney, 2013). For example, an individual may be required to take two calories of fat everyday as advised by a food nutritionist. It is one’s initiative to ensure that he or she takes that exact amount of nutritional components. Therefore, keenness is required when buying food product because this ensures that the exact quantities are spotted from the food labels.
As such, nutritional knowledge is concerned with general understanding of nutritional information that is normally provided in food labels. On the other hand, commitment refers to the taking in exact amount of nutrients based dieticians or nutritionists advices.
References
Sizer, F., & Whitney, E. (2013). Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies. Cengage Learning.
Worsley, A. (2002). Nutritional knowledge and food consumption: can nutrition knowledge change food behavior? Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 11(33), 579-585.