| Background:With the developing of nutritional research,more and more people are paying attention to nutrition and diet-related diseases.With the growth of the economy and the acceleration of the social rhythm,the number of people eating out is increasing,and eating out has become an important part of people’s daily diet.Diet is critical to national health,and published and unpublished studies have showed that people with learning difficulties have a high risk of nutritional problems.Catering staffs as providers of food for diners,their nutritional status may affect their compliance with nutritional behaviors.This paper analyzes the nutrition knowledge and nutritional behaviors of catering practitioners in China and Australia,The factors affecting nutrition knowledge and their relationship provide a certain data which support for the nutrition and health literacy of catering employees in two countries and provide theoretical basis and suggestions for nutrition education for catering practitioners in China and Australia.Objective:The purpose of this study is to understand the current status of nutritional health literacy level of catering staff in two countries by conducting a questionnaire survey about the knowledge of nutrition among staffs in China and Australia,and try to establish a catering business between two countries.At the same time,this investigation provides some information for health education measures and following researches in two countries.Methods:The research is based on both《Chinese Dietary Guidelines Summary(2016)》and《Australian Dietary Guidelines Summary(2013)》and questionnaire surveys of relevant catering staffs from two countries.The total numbers of valid return from China are 340,and those from Australia are 98.This questionnaire mainly adopts descriptive statistical analysis,examine and variance analysis.Results:1.Chinese catering practitioner’s male to female ratio is close to 1:1,whereas the catering staffs from Australia shows a great discrepancy.The age of both catering staffs from two countries is mainly concentrated in the 20～30 and it shows that they are mostly working as a chef.In both countries,the working years of relevant staffs are generally more than five years.Other than the gender difference,the two countries show similar features.2.The average awareness rate of Chinese catering practitioners is 26.6%,and among them,the males are in the 20～30 with primary school education.They work as a chef with less than five years of working experience and those who specialized in Cantonese cuisine have comparatively high nutrient knowledge rate.In Australia,however,the rate is 18.6 with women in the 31～40 of same working experience but in management layer shows higher nutrient knowledge rate.As a result,there are no great statistics differences in gender or working year to master nutrient knowledge but in age and working position.3.Catering practitioners from both countries possess certain nutrient knowledge,but overall nutrient awareness rate is low.Chinese catering staffs has high knowledge of recommended nutrient(daily)value from Chinese Nutrition Society,but low in knowledge of distribution of food composition2017 diet and related diseases;whereas in Australia,the staffs are knowledgeable in diet and related diseases but less familiar in daily salt intake or foods composition.4.The attitude of nutrient knowledge between catering staffs from two countries has difference in statistics.Chinese catering staffs has higher overall understanding of relevant handbook than those from Australia.However,either country has a thorough understanding of knowledge from hand book and can fully adapt into practical work.5.Chinese catering staff has generally good nutrition behaviour,especially in reducing salt and blanching vegetables.However,Australians staffs have higher level of knowledge about nutrition labeling than Chinese catering staffs.6.The method and demand for gaining nutrition knowledge is different between Chinese and Australian catering staffs.Chinese obtains the knowledge from books,newspapers,magazines,radio,television and internet.And they crave for learning the proper way of cooking and nutrition arrangements.In Australia,they normally obtain training from the institution for health inspection and supervision or related organizations,and focused on the basic of nutrition knowledge and required foods for chronic diseases.Conclusion:1.The demographic characteristics of Chinese catering practitioners and Australian practitioners are similar.There is a certain difference in nutrition knowledge between employees of the two countries with low awareness of nutrition knowledge.The relevant factors are analyzed,and it is believed that different style of cuisine can exist different understanding of familiar nutrition knowledge.2.Chinese and Australian practitioners are expected to improve《Chinese Dietary Guidelines Summary(2016)》and《Australian Dietary Guidelines Summary(2013)》,with specific knowledge of recommended intake,distribution of food ingredients and diet-related diseases.This alerts the catering industry to pay attention to the dissemination of nutrition knowledge and training,upgrade the understanding of nutrition knowledge of employees,cultivate nutrition and apply it to practical work.3.The nutrition behaviour of Chinese employees is generally better than that of Australian practitioners.The nutritional behaviors are closely related to the raw materials of the vegetables and the cooking process.It is believed that the more the raw materials are processed,the more attention is paid to the nutritional behaviors.4.There are differences between Chinese practitioners and Australia’s on how they get access to nutritional knowledge and the needs of nutritional knowledge.The needs for nutritional knowledge should be based on the national conditions to better make up for the lack of certain knowledge in short time and serve the customers greatly.The analysis believes that nutrition transmission and its needs should combine with actual condition and be carried out in many aspects. |
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