This paper aimed to conduct a literature review about the concept of cooking skills to contribute to the scientific debate about the subject. A systematic search was performed in the Scopus, PubMed/MedLine and Web of Science databases as well as the periodicals of the Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education in Brazil Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior website, using the following Portuguese and English keywords: cooking skills, cooking and food/meal preparation. We also consulted references cited by these papers, electronic dictionaries (in Portuguese, English and French), technical documents found on public and private institutional websites, as well as books. Basic, etymological/vernacular and systematic definitions for cooking were identified, including historical global and national contexts. To conceptualize cooking skills, categories related to food and individuals were established, purposing a conceptual model. The category related to food referred to the use of unprocessed/minimal processed foods (which require procedures prior to their preparation), and/or processed/ultra-processed foods (which need a little or no preparation, such as re-heating). The category related to individuals involved dimensions such as confidence, attitudes, behavior, and individual knowledge used to prepare foods. The historical definitions of cooking allowed us to clarify the concept of cooking skills. Considering the global context of valuing and recovering cooking for the promotion of healthy eating, this review can contribute to the scientific discussion about the concept of cooking skills. The purposed conceptual model enables parameters to be established for further investigations, allowing cooking interventions to be directed toward promoting healthy eating.

Culinary skills are defined as the confidence, attitude, and the application of one’s individual knowledge in performing culinary tasks, and their development may be associated with better diet quality and better health status. This study aimed to analyze the association between cooking skills, overweight, and obesity in undergraduates. This is a descriptive, observational, and cross-sectional study, with data collected between October 2020 and March 2021, with undergraduate students (n = 823) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Participants answered the online Brazilian Cooking Skills and Healthy Eating Questionnaire Evaluation, BCSQ, which included socioeconomic information. Logistic regressions were used to assess the associations of cooking skills with overweight and obesity. From the total of the students, 70.8% were female, with a median age of 23 (21–30) years; 43.6% were with overweight or obesity; 48.8% were eutrophic; and 7.7% underweight. Overweight and obesity were significantly associated with low levels of culinary self-efficacy and self-efficacy in the use of fruits, vegetables, and seasonings in the bivariate analysis. The logistic regressions showed that living with other people and eating out were associated with higher chances of overweight and obesity. Sharing the responsibility for preparing meals and a high self-efficacy in the use of fruits, vegetables, and seasonings were associated with lower chances for overweight/obesity. Overall, our study showed that overweight and obesity were associated with lower cooking skills in the studied undergraduates. Therefore, the study demonstrates that culinary skills can be explored in educational programs that aim to reduce overweight/obesity in students.

The study described the cross-cultural adaptation process of the American Cooking Skills and Healthy Eating questionnaire to Brazil. Six stages were followed: Translation; Synthesis of translations; Back-translations; Expert Committee; Synthesis of final version; and the Pretest (self-administered online questionnaire in a Brazilian University). Participants responded to the translated questionnaire twice for test-retest. Conceptual, item, semantic, operational and measurement equivalences were evaluated between original and translated questionnaires, as well as the internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Item, conceptual, semantic equivalences between original and Brazilian questionnaires were reached before the Expert Committee stage. Specific cooking techniques and terms were adapted. Forty-eight students answered the questionnaire in the pre-test stage, achieving the operational and measurement equivalences with kappa’s agreement from moderate to substantial, and satisfactory to excellent correlations between measures. Only two measures showed low internal consistency. The combination of stages and equivalences approaches used in this cross cultural adaptation study provided lessons for further Nutrition’s researches, disclosing the complexity of cooking skills concepts.