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Following family or friends. Social norms in adolescent healthy eating
This current study surveyed 757 sets of adolescents and parents to test the amount of influence parents have on their adolescents compared to the power their peers have, with regard to fruit and vegetable consumption in this case. It was found that parents still hold more influence on the adolescents’ fruit and vegetable intake, with the importance of descriptive norms (what they do) greater than injunctive norms (what they say). The researchers help raise awareness of how critical parents still are even at the adolescent stage, and provide a better understanding of what influences adolescent healthy eating and how parents and peers can have a significant effect. Pederson et al (2015) implicate that: healthy eating interventions should aim at strengthening self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations among adolescents; the family context should be included when implementing healthy eating interventions; and parents should be made more aware of their influence on their children’s healthy eating. [NPID: psychosocial, adolescents, parents, parental influence, fruit, vegetables, FV intake, descriptive norms, injunctive norms, self-efficacy, family context]
Year: 2015
