According to the World Health Organization, overweight and obesity have increased the risk of chronic diseases and mortality rates worldwide. An increase in portion sizes and negative changes in eating patterns (such as increased snacking frequency) have been thought to be large contributors to the current obesity epidemic. When it comes to adolescents, snacks tend to play an essential role in providing them with enough energy to grow and get through each day. However, many studies have found that adolescents commonly make poor choices when it comes to choosing nutritious foods and snacks. In 2008, it was suggested that a good way to combat this would be by increasing adolescents’ motivation and ability to choose healthy foods (and therefore healthy snacks).
Before motivating and teaching adolescents to choose healthy snacks, it’s important to understand how they perceive foods and what environmental exposure shapes their ability to evaluate whether or not the snack they are choosing is “healthy”. In this study, the researchers recruited 73 Swiss adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16 years old. Each participant was required to perform a snack-sorting task and answer a survey on their snacking habits and biometrics. The results showed that the adolescents strongly perceived “healthy” snacks with food items that contained fruits, nuts, and seeds while “unhealthy” snacks were associated with food items which contained high amounts of sugar and total fat. Although adolescents were able to identify certain ingredients or nutrients as healthy/unhealthy, it was noted that these adolescents did not take into consideration the amount of salt, protein, saturated fat, fiber, carbohydrates, or vitamins in the snack food items. Since many of the participants failed to check the nutrient labels and consider portion sizes, it was evident that they relied on their perceptions of food types (i.e. fruit, chocolate, pastry) to judge the healthiness of each snack.
Take home message: Seeing how important individual perceptions are in choosing healthy foods, it is important for adolescents to be adequately taught how to read nutrition labels, decipher portion sizes, and recognize the factors that make foods “healthy”. By educating youth on nutrition and food labels, they may be better equipped to make informed food decisions thereby increasing their ability to choose healthy snacks.
Reference: Bucher, T., Collins, C., Diem, S., & Siegrist, M. (2016). Adolescents’ perception of the healthiness of snacks. Food Quality and Preference, 50, 94–101.
