Investigating the association between adolescents’ attitudes and food preferences with their eating behaviors: Inspiration from the FLASHE study

Abstract

Background: Nutrition plays an integral role in the development and growth for the adolescent populations. Nutrition education programs promotes healthy dietary behavior changes by increasing the nutritional knowledge of the adolescents as well as positively influencing the attitudes and food preferences. We aim to investigate the association between adolescents’ eating behaviors with their attitudes and food preferences. Methods: The Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health and Eating (FLASHE) dataset, consisting of a sample of 1657 adolescents 12-17 years old is a cross-sectional study assessing diet-related behaviors and factors correlated with those behaviors. We used the public dataset to investigate the association between food preferences and attitudes towards eating behaviors. Our statistical analysis approach consists of multiple correspondence analysis with our exposures (attitudes and food preferences) and separate ordinal logistic regression model. Results: [We found that five variables are positively associated with adolescents’ healthy eating behaviors, which are self-efficacy regarding eating fruits and vegetables on a daily basis (aOR=1.56, 95%CI=1.05-2.31), positive preferences towards water (aOR=2.45, 95%CI=1.60-3.73), fruit (aOR=2.01, 95%CI=1.18-3.40)and vegetables (2.63, 95%CI=1.82-3.79) as well as positive attitudes towards having a healthy diet (aOR=2.18, 95%CI=1.57-3.04). As for unhealthy eating behaviors, we found that positive preferences towards sugary sweetened beverages and soda have the highest estimate with increasing the consumption of unhealthy food products, with adjusted odds ratio of 2.52 (95%CI 1.79-3.55) and 1.93 (95%CI 1.36-2.73). Two other variables have the opposite effect, which are self-efficacy in limiting junk food consumption (aOR=0.71, 95%CI=0.49-1.00) and positive attitudes in having a healthy diet(aOR=0.67, 95%0.47-0.94). Conclusions: [We found that adolescents’ preferences are strong predictors for their eating behaviors. The attitudes and food preferences could influence their eating behaviors by increasing consumption of healthy food products and reducing the consumption of unhealthy food products. The results of our study is consistent with the Theory of Planned Behavior along with multiple research. Education and intervention programs should aim at empowering the young generation to foster positive attitudes and motivation to eat healthily.]