health literacy scale and causal model of childhood overweight

background : who focuses on developing health literacy (hl) referring to cognitive and social skills. our objectives were to develop a scale for evaluating the hl level of thai childhood overweight, and develop a path model of health behavior (hb) for preventing obesity. study design: a cross-sectional study. methods : this research used a mixed method. overall, 2,000 school students were aged 9 to 14 yr collected by stratified random sampling from all parts of thailand in 2014. data were analyzed by cfa, lisrel. results : reliability of hl and hb scale ranged 0.62 to 0.82 and factor loading ranged 0.33 to 0.80, the subjects had low level of hl (60.0%) and fair level of hb (58.4%), and the path model of hb, could be influenced by hl from three paths. path 1 started from the health knowledge and understanding that directly influenced the eating behavior (effect sized - β was 0.13, p<0.05. path 2 the health knowledge and understanding that influenced managing their health conditions, media literacy, and making appropriate health-related decision β=0.07, 0.98, and 0.05, respectively. path 3 the accessing the information and services that influenced communicating for added skills, media literacy, and making appropriate health-related decision β=0.63, 0.93, 0.98, and 0.05. finally, basic level of hl measured from health knowledge and understanding and accessing the information and services that influenced hb through interactive, and critical level β= 0.76, 0.97, and 0.55, respectively. conclusions : hl scale for thai childhood overweight should be implemented as a screening tool developing hl by the public policy for health promotion.