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Taylor Pawlowski

Dr. Cassel

English 101

30, July 2019

Literature Review

What influences an adolescents eating habits? The most common areas that affect an

adolescents eating preferences and habits are individual, environmental, physical and societal

influences. The way an adolescent views unhealthy and healthy eating habits depend on areas in

their daily life that adversely affects their behavior and habits towards food. Individual

influences include an adolescent’s food preference, taste, attitude, knowledge, and beliefs.

Environmental influences are factors such as their parents and family, peers, availability, and

their socioeconomic status. Some examples of typical physical influences for an adolescent that

affects a child’s choice of food are their schools, local convenience stores, and fast food

restaurants. Lastly, an adolescent’s physical influences may include factors such as food

advertising, media exposure, and food and label claims. There is an abundance of potential

factors in an adolescent’s life that can contribute to their eating habits and choices but, this

research topic digs deeper into what actually influences a child’s choice of food they eat and how

it affects their daily

An adolescent’s eating habits come from their individual influences that affects their food

preferences, how the certain food tastes, their attitudes towards foods, the amount of knowledge
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they have, and individual beliefs about food. From the article Individual and environmental

influences on adolescent eating behaviors, it stated “Studies with adolescents and adults have

shown that taste is one of the most important influences on food choices. In focus groups with

adolescents taste and the appearance of food were frequently discussed as primary factors

influencing food selection” (Story S42). “A study in Brisbane asked adolescents what the

definition of health was and the students perceived health to be mainly related to their physical

body, its functional capabilities, the absence of ill health and the absences of physical restriction.

The definition of health given by the students encompassed a theme of being “fit” but largely

focused on not having an illness not being physically restricted, not getting breathless and the

desire to avoid health services. The students gave a negative and individually driven definition

has shown that the students have a negative point of view of eating healthy” (O’Dea 69). An

adolescent’s individual eating preferences largely surrounds on how the food tastes, looks, and

how they associate the food to the child. Also, a child’s knowledge and exposure to certain foods

has an impact on whether the child has a positive or negative view on the food. If the child has a

negative connotation to the word “healthy”, when the child sees vegetables or fruit on their plate

they automatically associate it with a negative thought so therefore the child will not try it or like

it. Exposing certain foods to children at a young age is very important for making healthier food

choices in the child’s future. Exposing your child to a more detailed and complex diet may lead

into your child thinking “healthy” food in a positive connotation and will most likely have a

larger diet and healthier food choices into adulthood. Both of these sources are credible because

they are academic journals and have credible research pictures, and graphs embedded into the

articles. Mary Story source talks about all the influences sources such as individual,
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environmental, physical, and societal influences and gives examples and explanations to all of

them.

An adolescent’s environment plays a huge role when determining the influences of an

adolescents eating habits. Environmental influences include a child’s parents and family, socio-

economic status, peers, and availability. A child’s parents are the biggest role in their child’s

eating habits. “Children are predisposed to learn through experience and the quality and quantity

of their experiences with food have powerful effects on their eating habits “(Cooke 32).A child’s

environment is what they experience and learn from, whatever it may be. An adolescents home

life and parents are the biggest factor into the type of eating habits the child will have. For

example, a child will like take out food and not like tomatoes because the child’s parents may

order out 6/7 days of the week and never have tomatoes in the house because the parents don’t

like or eat them so therefore the child will have the same qualities. From the sources above, they

give credible information from studies that have been conducted and researched. It shows that

home life and your parents are the number one reason for the kind of eating habits ad food

preferences that children have. In these sources, they roughly talk about peer’s influence on a

child’s eating habits.

Physical influences such as an adolescents school, local fast food restaurants and

convenience stores are factors in a child’s daily life that affects the kind of food a child chooses

to eat. “Adolescents spend much of their day in school where they are more vulnerable to peer

pressure where most of their unhealthy eating takes place” (Moreno-Maldonado 95). As a young

adolescent at school or social settings, they are easily influenced by what they are surrounded

with. Children spend most of their day in school so they are surrounded by their peers who have
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different eating habits, preferences, as well as how their families eat at home. For example, a

child may be influenced to try packaged cookies and learn what they are because a student in the

child’s class brought them in for everyone. Therefore, the children eating the cookies can be

considered pressured into eating them because everyone else is which creates an influence on

their eating habit. The sources written by Moreno-Maldonado talk about socioeconomic status,

peer behaviors, and school based influences on adolescents eating habits. Cooke, uses her

credibility to provide information for the reader’s explanation to determine as to why child have

certain eating habits. Cooke uses examples from the role of the family, exposure, availability, and

accessibility to get her point across.

An adolescent’s societal influences affects their eating habits and food choices due to the

over- exposure of media, food advertising and food labels and claims. “Factors within the larger

society—which can affect adolescent eating behavior—include the media, cultural norms, social

norms, food production and distribution system and food accessibility and availability” (Story

S47). With the exposure of media, TV, food production, etc., children are exposed at an early age

to what the media has put on labels and productions about food. Their eating habits are

influenced by media at an early age that will carry on throughout their adolescent years. Mary

Story uses this quote when discussing food habits and media, she uses this to provide how media,

tv, food production, etc is connected with adolescents eating habits.

Although it is commonly studied and researched the influences and factors for an adolescents

eating habit, it is also very common among all the sources that individual, environmental,

physical, societal influences affect a child’s eating behavior. Some examples of factors that were

commonly talked about in the sources is the important role that parents and home life are to a
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child’s eating preferences as well as the common foods and nutrients that a child intakes versus

what the child needs.

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Works Cited

Cooke, L. (2004). The development and modification of children's eating habits. Nutrition

Bulletin, 29(1), pp.31-35.

Moreno-Maldonado, C., Ramos, P., Moreno, C. and Rivera, F. (2018). How family

socioeconomic status, peer behaviors, and school-based intervention on healthy habits

influence adolescent eating behaviors. School Psychology International, pp.92–118.

O'Dea, J. (2005). Improving adolescent eating habits and prevention of child obesity: Are we

neglecting the crucial role of parents?. Nutrition & Dietetics, [online] 62(2-3), pp.66-68.

Available at: https://web-b-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.wittenberg.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=12819f84-00fc-

49f9-bae8-c2a50507ad8f%40sessionmgr101 [Accessed 30 Jul. 2019].

Pearce, A., Kirk, C., Cummins, S., Collins, M., Elliman, D., Connolly, A. and Law, C. (2009).

Gaining children's perspectives: A multiple method approach to explore environmental

influences on healthy eating and physical activity. Health & Place, [online] 15(2),

pp.614-621. Available at: https://journals-ohiolink-edu.ezproxy.wittenberg.edu/pg_99?

313395169947414::NO::P99_ENTITY_ID,P99_ENTITY_TYPE:276812900,MAIN_FIL

E&cs=3zHizIPS6v2iv-

aPGR_C4B_5_0fxa906AetCVoo0KFoGkOkvTzm0qHXvZUErOUyJjyjSao74CRppC88_

dLiYNiw [Accessed 30 Jul. 2019].

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STORY, M., NEUMARK-SZTAINER, D. and FRENCH, S. (2002). Individual and

Environmental Influences on Adolescent Eating Behaviors. Journal of the American Dietetic

Association, 102(3), pp.S40-S51.