Elsevier

Appetite

Volume 55, Issue 1, August 2010, Pages 11-17
Appetite

Research report
Peer influence on snacking behavior in adolescence

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2010.03.002Get rights and content

Abstract

To examine the association of adolescents’ snack and soft drink consumption with friendship group snack and soft drink consumption, availability of snacks and soft drinks at school, and personal characteristics, snack and soft drink consumption was assessed in 749 adolescents (398 girls, 351 boys, age 12.4–17.6 years), and their friends, and snack and soft drink availability at schools was measured. In regression analysis, consumption by friends, snack and soft drink availability within school, and personal characteristics (age, gender, education level, body mass index) were examined as determinants of snack and drink consumption. Snack and soft drink consumption was higher in boys, soft drink consumption was higher in lower educated adolescents, and snack consumption was higher in adolescents with a lower body weight. Peer group snack and soft drink consumption were associated with individual intake, particularly when availability in the canteen and vending machines was high. The association between individual and peer snack consumption was strong in boys, adolescents with a lower education level, and adolescents with lower body weights. Our study shows that individual snack and soft drink consumption is associated with specific combinations of consumption by peers, availability at school, and personal characteristics.

Introduction

Obesity is a complex and often chronic health problem resulting from the interaction of metabolic, genetic, environmental, and psychological factors (Wadden & Stunkard, 2004). Overweight often develops early in life and tracks into adulthood (Daniels, 2006), causing a serious burden during and beyond childhood (Lobstein & Jackson-Leach, 2006). Adolescence, with its rapid changes in body composition (Daniels et al., 2005) and food habits, coinciding with the transition from the direct home influence to the peer-related environment (Von Post-Skagegard et al., 2002), is likely to be a particularly vulnerable period in the onset of obesity.

Ecological models examine the problem of obesity by regarding both the individual disorder and the abnormal environment (Egger and Swinburn, 1997, Giskes et al., 2007). Easily available unhealthy food is an important representative of the so called physical ‘obesogenic’ environment (Cohen, 2008, Kipke et al., 2007, Martens et al., 2005, Zenk and Powell, 2008). Schools play an important role in the consumption of unhealthy food among adolescents. Availability of snacks at school has been associated with unhealthier food habits of secondary school pupils, and changing the canteen policy, e.g. by decreasing portion sizes, influenced energy balance in a favorable way (Cullen and Thompson, 2005, Cullen et al., 2000).

Besides the physical school environment that supplies food, we propose that also the social environment plays a role in determining unhealthy food intake among adolescents. During adolescence, children spend increasingly more time with friends, and their need to belong to a group and to be accepted by peers is higher than during other periods in life (Coleman, 1980). Social learning theory specifies that peers may influence each other by observing, modeling, and imitating behavior of important individuals in their environment (Bandura, 1986). Group norm setting is also a powerful mechanism in determining an individual's behavior (Coleman & Lal, 1994). Prospective research suggested that peers influence each other in a wide range of health behaviors, e.g., smoking (Gritz et al., 2003), alcohol consumption (Urberg, Degirmencioglu, & Pilgrim, 1997), and disordered eating (Zalta & Keel, 2006). Social networks have also been found relevant for the spreading of obesity in adults (Christakis & Fowler, 2007). The cross-sectional design of the current study cannot disentangle influence processes from selection processes such as similar adolescents choosing each other as friends. However, this is the first study to examine similarities in snack and soft drink consumption within friendship groups. To establish this relationship is an important first step before examining the precise causal mechanisms.

Adolescents’ snacking behavior is not only expected to depend on aspects of the physical and social environment, but also on personal characteristics (Kremers et al., 2006). Consumption of unhealthy food is more frequent in boys (Bauer et al., 2009, Von Bothmer and Fridlund, 2005) and in lower educated (Van der Horst et al., 2007) and overweight children (Hill et al., 2008, Kubik et al., 2005). The aim of the present study was to examine the association of adolescents’ snack and soft drink consumption with snack and soft drink consumption in friendship groups (social environment), the availability of snacks at school (physical environment), and personal characteristics. The investigation of the possible influence of the school environment was preliminary considering the design of our study. Our hypothesis was that the consumption in friendship groups, availability of snacks and soft drinks at school, and personal characteristics are associated with individual snack and soft drink consumption.

Section snippets

Population and design

This cross-sectional study was part of a larger survey called ‘Mental Health and Health Habits’. This longitudinal cohort study in adolescents that covers three years, examines the associations between psychosocial factors and health behavior such as food intake, smoking, and alcohol use (Larsen, Otten, & Engels, 2009). Participants were recruited from seven randomly selected secondary schools in suburban (N = 3) and urban (N = 4) areas from three regions in the Netherlands. Two schools were

Description of the sample

Of the original sample of 1330, 749 adolescents with complete data on all variables were part of a friendship group. This sample showed no difference with the non-friendship group sample with respect to age, zBMI, and snack consumption. The friendship group sample, as compared to the non-friendship group sample, included more girls (53% and 46%, respectively) and had a higher education level (4.7 versus 4.4). The education of 749 adolescents belonging to a friendship group was for 15%

Discussion

Individual snack and soft drink consumption was high when peers proximate to the adolescent had a high consumption combined with readily availability within schools of snacks in the canteen and soft drinks in the vending machines. Individual and peer snack consumption was particularly strongly associated in boys, adolescents with lower education levels, and normal weight adolescents.

Comparable to earlier studies on body image and disordered eating behavior (Hutchinson and Rapee, 2007, Paxton et

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    This study was financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Veni Grant 451-05-013. We thank Lieke Woelders for the observations at the schools, Theo van der Weegen, for analyzing the dataset with respect to the peer friendship groups and Ad Vermulst, for his advice on multilevel analysis.

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