Adolescents’ Food Purchasing Patterns in The School Food Environment: Examining the Role of Perceived Relationship Support and Maternal Monitoring

Abstract

The school food environment plays a role in adolescents’ dietary behaviors. In this study, adolescents’ food purchasing patterns in and around school and its potential relationship with perceived maternal relationship support and maternal monitoring were examined. Data were collected in The Netherlands in 2017. A total of 726 adolescents (45.8% boys; Mage = 13.78 ± 0.49) and 713 mothers (Mage = 45.05 ± 4.45) participated. Adolescents’ frequency of bringing and purchasing foods was assessed via a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Relationship support and monitoring were measured via self-report questionnaires. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was conducted to examine associations between adolescents’ food purchasing patterns, relationship support, and monitoring. Results indicated that adolescents brought food and drinks mostly from home, and infrequently purchased these products in and around school. Yet, differences exist between subgroups of adolescents. Relationship support was positively associated with bringing fruit, vegetables and salad and negatively associated with purchasing sweet snacks. No associations were found for monitoring. These findings indicate that family-home determinants of healthy and unhealthy eating are important factors to consider when examining the impact of the school food environment on adolescents’ food purchasing patterns. This has implications for policy makers who aim to develop and implement measures to improve adolescents’ eating in and around school.

The Effect of Supportive Implementation of Healthier Canteen Guidelines on Changes in Dutch School Canteens and Student Purchase Behaviour

“…Changing dietary behaviour is complex and affected by multiple individual, social and environmental factors [45][46][47]-for example, the palatability, price and convenience of foods offered in environments that youth visit regularly, including the school canteen and shops around schools [13,45,48]. During adolescence, many factors that influence youth's dietary choices are changing: they become more independent, parental influence decreases and influence of peers increases, living environments expand, and they have more money to spend [49,50].…”

“…Attention to the home environment and the environment around school is therefore needed. The complexity of the food environment at schools within this broader food environment makes the use of whole system-based approaches important [13,46]. Different relevant stakeholders such as parents, shopkeepers, and local policy makers should be actively involved in this approach.…”

“…In the Netherlands, most schools have no tradition of offering school meals, but do offer complementary foods and drinks in a cafeteria and/or vending machines. Most students bring their lunch from home, and buy additional food and drinks at school, or at shops around the school [13]. The national Healthy School Canteen Programme of the Netherlands Nutrition Centre, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, provides schools with free support to create healthier canteens (cafeteria and/or vending machine) [14][15][16].…”

What Do Secondary Schools Need to Create Healthier Canteens? The Development of an Implementation Plan

“…In the Netherlands adolescents (aged 9–18) consume 15% of their total food and drink intake per day at school ( 9 ). Even though most Dutch students (aged 12–18 year) bring their own lunches from home, they buy complementary foods (snacks and drinks) in the school canteen and around school ( 10 ).…”

Environmental Influences on Dietary Intake of Children and Adolescents

“…This stresses the importance of carefully considering our methodology to assess environmental influences, also taking the child's perspective of the environment into account [8]. In addition, Hermans and colleagues [9] showed that parental influence on adolescents' dietary intake even reaches beyond the home setting: Support from mothers was positively associated with adolescents bringing healthy products to school, and negatively associated with their purchase of sweet snacks in and around school [9].…”