Limited health literacy is independently associated with unhealthy lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, drinking, insufficient exercise and fruit and vegetable consumption – all of which are major risks for premature morbidity and mortality.6-10
The European Health Literacy Survey (EU-HLS) also found that across all participating countries4 except Spain the amount of physical exercise people undertook was consistently and strongly associated with health literacy.53
Good childhood health literacy has also been found to be positively associated with a healthier diet. For example, a 2014 study found that young people with good health literacy are more likely to use food nutritional labels.83