Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar;25(3):702-709.
doi: 10.1017/S1368980020004334. Epub 2020 Oct 28.

Associations between family structure and adolescents' food habits

Anne-Siri Fismen  1 , Otto Robert Frans Smith  1 , Oddrun Samdal  2 , Arnfinn Helleve  3 , Ellen Haug  2   4
Affiliations

Associations between family structure and adolescents' food habits

Anne-Siri Fismen et al. Public Health Nutr. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate family structure differences in adolescents' consumption of fruit, vegetables, sweets and sugar-added soft drinks with adjustments for socio-demographic and socio-economic variables.

Design: Cross-sectional data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey.

Setting: Norwegian primary and secondary schools.

Participants: Adolescents (n 4475) aged 11, 13, 15 and 16 years.

Results: After adjusting for covariates, living in a single-mother family was associated with lower vegetable consumption (OR 0·76, 95 % CI 0·63, 0·91) and higher soft drink consumption (OR 1·29, 95 % CI 1·06, 1·57). Living in a mother and stepfather family was negatively associated with fruit (OR 0·71, 95 % CI 0·54, 0·95) and vegetable (OR 0·72, 95 % CI 0·54, 0·97) consumption. Living in a single-father family was associated with lower sweets consumption (OR 0·48, 95 % CI 0·32, 0·72). No significant interactions were demonstrated between family structure and socio-demographic or socio-economic covariates.

Conclusions: The study suggests that an independent association between family structure and adolescents' food habits exists.

Keywords: Adolescents; Family structure; Food habits.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Corkins MR, Daniels SR, de Ferranti SD et al. (2016) Nutrition in children and adolescents. Med Clin North Am 100, 1217–1235. - PubMed
    1. Series WTR (2003) Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases: Report of a Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation. Geneva: World Health Organization.
    1. Inchley JC, Jewell D, João Bred J et al. (2017) Adolescent obesity and related behaviours: trends and inequalities in the WHO European Region, 2002–2014. https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/child-and-adolesce... (accessed November 2020).
    1. Berge JM, Meyer C, MacLehose RF et al. (2015) All in the family: correlations between parents’ and adolescent siblings’ weight and weight-related behaviors. Obesity 23, 833–839. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yee AZ, Lwin MO & Ho SS (2017) The influence of parental practices on child promotive and preventive food consumption behaviors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 14, 47. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types