FOLKEHELSE-Folkehelse

The project will focus on the socio-cultural aspects of teen girls and boys food choice and eating patterns. In the qualitative part we will focus on how teenagers describe, explain and give reasons for their food and eating patterns, while the quantitati ve part will map eating behaviour, motivations and constraints in adolescents everyday life. Teenagers are an interesting group for several reasons. Adolescents are at a stage in life where they start acting more independently. Peer influence, food avail ability in school and out-of-home settings, and marketing directed at their age-group play an increasing role. Several studies indicate that many teenagers have a diet of poor nutritional quality; rich in fat and sugar and low in fruit, vegetables and fis h. Teen boys deviate more from nutritional recommendations than teen girls, but when girls are more interested in healthy foods the motivation is often appearances. Our analytical perspective is sociological where observations regarding diet are understo od in the context of cultural values, social norms and structural factors. To increase the understanding of the impact of such factors will be of crucial importance for developing efficient measures to promote healthy eating and attitudes towards food in these groups. In the project we have both national and international partners. The purpose is both to strenghten multi-disciplinary in studies on young peoples food and eating patterns and to contribute to a comparative dimension. To increase the policy relevance we will also cooperate with stakeholders in regional preventive health administration. In designing efficient health promoting measures it is important to increase our knowledge about the possibilities and constraints that teenagers meet in the ir daily dealing with food - both socially and culturally. Dissemination activities are planned, both within the scientific community, through media and to national and regional policy makers.