Elsevier

Appetite

Volume 50, Issues 2–3, March–May 2008, Pages 325-332
Appetite

Research Report
Autonomy and control: The co-construction of adolescent food choice

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2007.08.009Get rights and content

Abstract

We explored how adolescents and parents negotiate adolescents’ increasing food choice autonomy in European Canadian, Punjabi Canadian and African Canadian families. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 47 adolescents and their parents, participant observation at a family meal and a grocery shopping trip with the family shopper(s). Thematic and constant comparative analyses were used. Adolescents exercised considerable autonomy over much of their food choice and their parents monitored and controlled the environment within which adolescents were given independence and responsibility. Parents used strategies of coaxing, coaching and coercing, while teens responded by complaining, ignoring and refusing their parents’ advice. At the same time, teens took responsibility and reflected on their behaviours while keeping in mind their parents’ advice, even if in some cases they were as yet unable to act upon it. Food choice autonomy is not simply a negative act of teenage defiance. Instead, it is actively co-constructed by both teens and their parents as each resists and responds to the others. Studies of adolescent autonomy related to food choices, and interventions based on nutritional autonomy as a risk factor for poor nutrition would do well to take account of the co-constructive parent–adolescent process of teen autonomy.

Introduction

During adolescence, individuals develop responsibility for health-related behaviours and attitudes that affect their future (Milligan et al., 1997; Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Perry, & Casey, 1999). Food-related attitudes and behaviours are particularly important during these years (Cavadini et al., 1999; Story, Neumark-Sztainer, & French, 2002) since eating habits developed at this time continue into adulthood (Videon & Manning, 2003). Adolescents have a reputation for unhealthy food choices (Cavadini et al., 1999; Story et al., 2002), and interventions have had mixed success (Lytle, 1995). Research has found that adolescents understand at an abstract level the healthiness of certain foods but have limited concern about the future (Bissonnette & Contento, 2001). Their eating habits tend to be characterized by frequent snacking, skipping meals, junk food consumption and consistently low intake of milk, fruits and vegetables (Cavadini et al., 1999; Chapman & Maclean, 1993; Péres-Llamas, Garaulet, Nieto, Baraza, & Zamora, 1996; Samuelson, Bratteby, Enghardt, & Hedgren, 1996; Watt & Sheiham, 1996).

Multiple psycho-social and environmental factors influence teenagers’ food choices (Cavadini et al., 1999; Story et al., 2002), including hunger, mood, preferences, appeal, time demands, convenience and cost (Bissonnette & Contento, 2001; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999). The family context is seen as a key influence on teens’ diets, as eating behaviours are embedded in, and influenced by the family (De Bourdeaudhuij & Sallis, 2002). How parents encourage their children to eat helps shape teens’ food preferences and consumption patterns (Kremers, Brug, de Vries, & Rutger, 2003; Patrick, Nicklas, Hughes, & Morales, 2005). The preparation of meals by parents and their insistence on family meals encourage healthy adolescent eating habits (Hannon, Bowen, Moinpour, & McLerran, 2003). On the other hand, teens pester their parents for junk food (Lee & Collins, 2000), bargain and negotiate, persuade and manipulate, use emotion and make outright demands to influence their parents’ purchasing decisions. Parents, in response, provide guidance and teach their teenage children consumer skills, sometimes enforce decisions using their parental authority (Palan & Wilkes, 1997) and at times ‘give-in’ to their children's pestering (Turner, Kelly, & McKenna, 2006). These adolescent–parent interactions occur to varying degrees in different types of families. In both the nutrition and consumer science literature concerned with parents’ feeding practices and consumer behaviours, respectively, family types have ranged from laissez-faire, protective and authoritarian with little concern for children's choices, to authoritative and pluralistic with shared parent–child responsibility for eating and consumer choices, to consensual where choices explored must not interrupt family harmony, to indulgent and permissive with parents having little control over their children's eating habits (Branen & Fletcher, 1999; Hughes, Power, Fisher, Mueller, & Nicklas, 2005; Moschis, 1985; Moschis, Prahasto, & Mitchell, 1986; Patrick et al., 2005).

Home environment influences diminish in adolescence and compete with external influences (Brown, McIlveen, & Strugnell, 2006). Peer pressure, and acceptance and conformity needs become important as teens increasingly purchase and consume food away from home (Brown et al., 2006; Chapman & Maclean, 1993; Turner et al., 2006). In addition, the targeting of adolescents in food-related advertising encourages some food choices over others (Brown & Witherspoon, 2002; Turner et al., 2006).

Adolescents’ increasing independence around food choice is often portrayed negatively, as an act of parental defiance and peer solidarity (Hill, 2002), with teens pursuing autonomy based on a desire to be alone, often excluding themselves from meals (Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Ackard, Moe, & Perry, 2000). Autonomy is considered a risk factor for poor nutrition (Videon & Manning, 2003) and in situations where adolescents have more control, their food choices tend to be less healthy (De Bourdeaudhuij & Sallis, 2002). Adolescents resolve conflict between their need for autonomy over their food choices and the needs of others in the family by making their own meals, eating out, eating what is served, and/or negotiating to have their own and other family members’ food choices and needs met (Contento, Williams, Michela, & Franklin, 2006). Adolescents’ personal food choice criteria may be satisfied by using different values for different meals: taste for lunch and snacks, and health for evening and family meal choices (Brown et al., 2006; Chapman & Maclean, 1993; Contento et al., 2006). Overall, however, we have very limited understanding of the processes by which adolescents and parents, individually and collectively, negotiate adolescents’ increasing food choice autonomy within the family in a context wider than that of purchasing decisions. We also have limited understanding of how health and nutrition concerns come into play in these processes.

Some of the limits in our current knowledge in this area relate to methodological issues. Many studies of adolescents’ eating patterns and food decision making have focused on the adolescent alone or have asked parents about adolescents’ food choices and eating habits (De Bourdeaudhuij & Sallis, 2002; Wheeler, Wintre, & Polivy, 2003). Yet parents may not have full knowledge of their adolescent children's diets (Hannon et al., 2003). In studies where adolescents and parents were both asked about family food decision making, each had different perceptions about their level of influence (De Bourdeaudhuij & Sallis, 2002). These differences have been discussed in relation to concerns about the validity of self-report data, but not from a constructivist perspective that explores teens’ and parents’ unique understandings of food choice processes. In consumer studies, too, the focus has largely been on the effectiveness of adolescent influence on family purchasing, although the parent's response has not been neglected (Palan & Wilkes, 1997). Different communication patterns within families result in different outcomes for teens in terms of consumer activities (Moschis, 1985; Moschis et al., 1986; Palan, 1998). These studies, however, are narrowly focused on family decisions related to consumer behaviour, and especially on family communication as it affects teens’ behaviour. Our interest was in the shared decision making about food choices within the household, which undeniably includes but is not limited to the purchase of food, and the context within which that decision making occurs. Further, much of the research investigating food consumption and eating patterns has been conducted with groups of European heritage. Few studies have examined eating behaviours among ethnically diverse populations (Videon & Manning, 2003), and especially adolescents in ethnically diverse family contexts (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999).

To begin to address these gaps, we conducted a qualitative study of family food decision making in three ethno-cultural groups in two Canadian provinces (Nova Scotia (NS) on the East coast and British Columbia (BC) on the West coast). In this paper, we present findings regarding the processes by which adolescents and parents negotiate adolescents’ increasing food choice autonomy in European Canadian (EBC and ENS), Punjabi Canadian (PBC), and African Canadian (ANS) families.

Section snippets

Method

Following approval from the Research Ethics Board, families were recruited to The Food Decision-Making Study using poster advertising and snowball sampling. To be eligible, consent to an interview was required from three or more family members over the age of 13 years, including a woman aged 25–55 years. Family members were interviewed individually at a time and place of their choosing, usually their home. Interviews were semi-structured and recorded, lasting from 1 to 3 h. The interview guide

Demographic profile

The demographic profiles of the teens can be found in Table 1.

Of the 36 families with adolescents, 11 were ANS, 5 PBC, 10 ENS and 10 were EBC. More women than men participated in the study as a whole, and in families with adolescents, 42 women and 20 men agreed to be interviewed. The mean age of parents was 41 years (range 30–58). The majority of parents had higher education: 82 percent of EBC parents, 71 percent of ENS parents, 64 percent of PBC parents and 41 percent of ANS parents had

Discussion

Autonomy is the process by which adolescents take responsibility and parents become less responsible for their teenager's food decision making. To relinquish responsibility and control of their children's food decision making, most parents in this study established what they believed to be a relatively safe and healthy environment in which their children could develop autonomy. They stocked the house with food they wished their children to eat; thus teens were able to avoid conflicting food

Acknowledgements

The study received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). We thank research assistants Barin Chane, Andrea D’Sylva, Carolyn Gill, Lucki Kang, Kandi Johnson and Svetlana Ristovski-Slijepcevic for data collection, as well as their insights and reflections which continue to inform the study. This revised manuscript has benefited considerably from the comments and suggestions of anonymous reviewers.

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