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Multicontextual correlates of energy-dense, nutrient-poor snack food consumption by adolescents
Larson and her team (2017) surveyed a total of 2540 adolescents in 2009-2010 to identify individual and environmental influences that make this population eat energy-dense nutrient-poor snack foods. The aim was to inform strategies for reducing the adolescents’ intake of energy-dense snacks. The participants selected from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota schools were 54% female, 80% non-white, and had the average age of 14.5 ± 2.0. Daily servings of energy-dense snack food were assessed using a food frequency questionnaire that asked about consumption of 21 common snack food items, such as potato chips, cookies, and candy. Accounts of the adolescents’ environments were taken from parents/caregivers, friends, school personnel, Geographic Information System sources, and a content analysis of favorite television shows. The factors found to be significantly associated with greater consumption of energy-dense snacks were individual attitudes/behaviors (e.g., snacking while watching television) and characteristics of home/family (e.g., unhealthy food accessibility at home), peers (friends’ energy-dense snack food intake), and school (e.g., student snack consumption norms) environments. In total, 25.5% of the variance in adolescents’ energy-dense snack food consumption was explained when factors from within each context were examined together. The implications of these results were that if one plans to improve the dietary quality of adolescents’ snack food choices, the following factors need to be addressed: individual; home/family characteristics; peers and school environments. [NPID: behavior, adolescence, snack foods, snacking, potato chips, cookies, candy, television, TV, food accessibility, snack norms, individual environments, school environments, peers]
Year: 2017
