Communicative and critical health literacy and eating behaviors in Japanese adults predominantly over 40: the modifying role of body image distortion.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Disordered eating behaviors, emotional eating (EE), uncontrolled eating (UE), and cognitive restraint (CR) contribute to weight dysregulation and remain public health concerns in Japan. Body image distortion (BID), or the misperception of one's body size, has been linked to both being underweight and overweight. While health literacy (HL) and BID are individually associated with eating behaviors, the influence of higher-order HL domains-communicative and critical literacy-and their interactions with BID remain unclear. This study examined how HL and BID jointly influence multidimensional eating behaviors.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study of Japanese adults, HL was measured using the 14-item Health Literacy Scale. BID was defined as the discrepancy between the

SUBMITTER: Kurita N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12667047 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature