A qualitative study investigating food choices and perceived psychosocial influences on eating behaviours in secondary school students

Abstract

PurposeChildhood obesity is a major global health concern. Understanding children's and adolescent’s eating behaviours and promoting healthier behaviours is key for reducing the negative health outcomes associated with obesity. The current study explored the perceptions of healthy eating behaviours and the influences on eating behaviours amongst 11-to-13-year-old secondary school students.Design/methodology/approachNine semi-structured same-sex focus group discussions were conducted in schools located in deprived areas of England, with the discussions subjected to a thematic framework analysis.FindingsThree main constructs were identified in the analysis as follows: (1) eating patterns and lifestyle, (2) social influences and (3) environmental influences. Participants understood what healthy eating behaviours are and the benefits of eating healthy; yet, they reported irregular mealtimes and consuming unhealthy snacks. Students reported that their parents and fellow student peers were strong influences on their own eating behaviours, with girls subjected to being teased by male students for attempting to eat healthily. Finally, students perceived that unhealthy foods were cheaper, tasted better and were readily available in their social environments compared to healthier options, making healthier behaviours less likely to occur.Originality/valueFindings indicate that students had a good understanding of healthy eating behaviours but did not always practise them and are seemingly influenced by their social and environmental context. The promotion of healthier eating in this age group needs to challenge the misperceptions associated with the accessibility and social acceptability of unhealthy food items.

How Does the Family Influence Adolescent Eating Habits in Terms of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices? A Global Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies

“…Family modeling of healthy eating habits [35,37,43,44,47,[55][56][57]59,66,68,70,77,80] Encouragement and praise [35,38,44,49,51,66,68,69,71,75,77,80] Parental concern on adolescent's health [38,56,57,66,78] Adolescent acting as a role model in the family [77,78] Family modeling of unhealthy eating habits [39,40,[46][47][48][49][50]54,59,68,69,[72][73][74]79] Lack of parental concern on adolescent dietary issues (e.g., body weight is not important for the young) [42,…”

“…Family norm and role modeling can be both facilitators of and barriers to healthy eating in adolescents. Aside from listening to their parents' advice, adolescents also choose their food by observing their parents' and siblings' eating habits of both healthy [35,37,43,44,47,[55][56][57]59,66,68,70,77,80] and unhealthy foods [39,40,[46][47][48][49][50]54,59,68,69,[72][73][74]79]. Parents who followed the same rules as they told their children enhanced the formation of the family norm [56,80].…”

“…In addition to family members' preference for unhealthy foods [40,46,72], another important family barrier that impedes healthy eating was not prioritizing health in the family [42,50,51]. Some parents had cultural beliefs suggesting that thinness is a sign of sickness and convinced adolescents that body weight is not an important indicator of health [42,78], while some considered food choice was adolescents' own responsibility, hence not providing sufficient guidance on healthy eating [42,79].…”

“…Parents could manage the food supply to provide more healthy foods and to restrict food with insufficient nutrients [36,37,39,40,[42][43][44][45][47][48][49][50]52,[55][56][57][59][60][61][64][65][66][67][68][69][70]73,74,77,79,80]. Failure of some families to provide healthy meals [39,54,63,76,78] or stock healthy foods at home [40,41,46,48,49,53,59,[67][68][69]74,78] is explained in more depth in the following themes.…”

Social media and unhealthy food nexus: Evidence from Saudi Arabia

“…A review of youth-targeted food marketing expenditures (Rummo et al, 2020) concluded that unhealthy food and beverages are highly followed by adolescents on social media platforms. In a study conducted on a sample of UK secondary school students (Calvert et al, 2020), the authors aimed to identify the factors that affect students' unhealthy eating habits. Although the surveyed students in the study were savvy of the consequences of eating unhealthy food, the authors indicated that environmental and social factors are the main deterrents for spreading healthy food consumption patterns among students.…”