Food literacy has emerged as a key individual trait to promote the transformation of food systems toward healthy and sustainable diets. Childhood and adolescence are key periods for establishing the foundations of eating habits. Different food literacy competencies are acquired as children develop different cognitive abilities, skills, and experiences, contributing to the development of critical tools that allow them to navigate a complex food system. Thus, the design and implementation of programs to support the development of food literacy from early childhood can contribute to healthier and more sustainable eating habits. In this context, the aim of the present narrative review is to provide an in-depth description of how different food literacy competencies are developed in childhood and adolescence, integrating the extensive body of evidence on cognitive, social, and food-related development. Implications for the development of multisectoral strategies to target the multidimensional nature of food literacy and promote the development of the 3 types of competencies (relational, functional, and critical) are discussed.

Objective: Warnings have recently been proposed as a new type of directive front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labelling scheme to flag products with high content of key nutrients. In the present work, this system was compared with the two most common FOP nutrition labelling schemes (Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) and traffic-light system) in terms of goal-directed attention, influence on perceived healthfulness and ability to differentiate between products.Design/Setting/Subjects: Goal-directed attention to FOP labels was evaluated using a visual search task in which participants were presented with labels on a computer screen and were asked to indicate whether labels with high sodium content were present or absent. A survey with 387 participants was also carried out, in which the influence of FOP labels on perceived healthfulness and ability to identify the healthful alternative were evaluated.Results: Warnings improved consumers’ ability to correctly identify a product with high content of a key nutrient within a set of labels compared with GDA and received the highest goal-directed attention. In addition, products with high energy, saturated fat, sugar and/or sodium content that featured warnings on the label were perceived as less healthful than those featuring the GDA or traffic-light system. Warnings and the traffic-light system performed equally well in the identification of the most healthful product.Conclusions: Results from the present work suggest that warnings have potential as directive FOP nutrition labels to improve consumer ability to identify unhealthful products and highlight advantages compared with the traffic-light system.