Working PaperArticleVersion 1This version is not peer-reviewed
Adolescents Are More than Twice as Likely to Consume Soft Drinks and Chips at Locations Away from Home and School: Correspondence Analysis and Logistic Regression Results from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme
Palla, L.; Chapman, A.; Beh, E.; Pot, G.; Almiron-Roig, E. Where Do Adolescents Eat Less-Healthy Foods? Correspondence Analysis and Logistic Regression Results from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Nutrients2020, 12, 2235.
Palla, L.; Chapman, A.; Beh, E.; Pot, G.; Almiron-Roig, E. Where Do Adolescents Eat Less-Healthy Foods? Correspondence Analysis and Logistic Regression Results from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Nutrients 2020, 12, 2235.
Palla, L.; Chapman, A.; Beh, E.; Pot, G.; Almiron-Roig, E. Where Do Adolescents Eat Less-Healthy Foods? Correspondence Analysis and Logistic Regression Results from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Nutrients2020, 12, 2235.
Palla, L.; Chapman, A.; Beh, E.; Pot, G.; Almiron-Roig, E. Where Do Adolescents Eat Less-Healthy Foods? Correspondence Analysis and Logistic Regression Results from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Nutrients 2020, 12, 2235.
Abstract
Obesity is a global public health problem and the environment as its major determinant. To identify interventions an evidence base is warranted. To this aim we investigate the relationship between the consumption of foods and eating locations (like home, school/work and others) in British adolescents, using data from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Program (2008–2012 and 2013-2016). Cross-sectional analysis of 62,523 food diary entries from this nationally representative sample then focused on foods contributing up to 80% total energy to the daily adolescent´s diet. Correspondence Analysis (CA) was first used to generate food-location relationship hypotheses and Logistic Regression (LR) to quantify the evidence in terms of odds ratios and formally test those hypotheses. The less-healthy foods that emerged from CA were chips, soft drinks, chocolate and meat pies. Adjusted Odds Ratios (99% CI) for consuming specific foods at a location “Other” than home (H) or school/work (S) in the 2008-12 survey sample were: for soft drinks 2.8 (2.1 to 3.8) vs. H and 2.0 (1.4 to 2.8) vs. S; for chips 2.8 (2.2 to 3.7) vs. H and 3.4 (2.1 to 5.5) vs. S; for chocolates 2.6 (1.9 to 3.5) vs. H and 1.9 (1.2 to 2.9) vs. S; and for meat pies 2.7 (1.5 to 5.1) vs. H and 1.3 (0.5 to 3.1) vs. S. These trends were confirmed in the 2013-16 survey sample. Interactions between location and BMI were not significant in either sample. In conclusion, our study showed that adolescents are more likely to consume specific less-healthy foods at locations away from home and school/work, irrespective of BMI. Such locations include leisure places, food outlets and “on the go”, hence public health policies to discourage less-healthy food choices in these locations is warranted for all adolescents.
Medicine and Pharmacology, Dietetics and Nutrition
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
