Factors influencing the food choices of Irish childrenand adolescents: a qualitative investigation

AMANDA FITZGERALD1*, CAROLINE HEARY1, ELIZABETH NIXON2

and COLETTE KELLY3

1School of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, 2School of Psychology, TrinityCollege Dublin, Dublin, Ireland and 3School of Health Sciences, National University of Ireland, Galway,Ireland*Corresponding author. E-mail: a.fitzgerald12@nuigalway.ie

SUMMARY

Food choices established during childhood and adoles-cence tend to persist into adulthood with consequencesfor long-term health. Yet, to date, relatively little researchhas examined factors that influence the food choices ofchildren and adolescents from their perspectives. In thisarticle, previous research is extended by examining devel-opmental differences between children’s and adolescents’perceptions of factors influencing their food choices.Focus group discussions were conducted with 29 youngpeople from three age groups (9–10, 13–14 and 16–18years). An inductive thematic analysis identified three keyfactors as influencing food choices. These factors included

intra-individual factors: the link between food preferencesand awareness of healthy eating; intra-familial factors: therole of the home food environment; and extra-familialfactors: eating away from the home. Findings indicate thatthere were developmental differences between children’sand adolescents’ perceptions of factors influencing foodchoice. Among adolescents, parental control began todiminish and adolescents exercised increased autonomyover their food choices compared with children. Todevelop effective nutrition interventions, it is important togather child and adolescent input regarding factors per-ceived as influencing their food choices.

Key words: children; adolescents; food choices; Ireland

INTRODUCTION

Nutritional intake during childhood and adoles-cence is important for growth (Story et al.,2002), the development of lifelong eating beha-viours (Coulson et al., 1998) and may have long-term health implications. In recent years, thequality of children’s and adolescents’ diets inthe Western world has become of growingconcern to researchers and health professionals.Studies have consistently shown that many chil-dren and adolescents have poor dietary habitsthat do not meet recommended dietary guide-lines (Gregory et al., 2000; Story et al., 2002).Children and adolescents are increasingly

consuming high intakes of foods rich in fat,sugar and salt, and low intake of fruits, veg-etables, wholegrains and calcium-rich foods(Institute of Medicine, 2007).

There is also evidence to suggest that dietaryquality declines from childhood to adolescence(Lytle et al., 2000; Lien et al., 2001). Forexample, Lytle et al. found that as studentsmoved from elementary to junior high andmiddle school, their consumption of breakfast,fruits, vegetables and milk decreased, whereassoft drink consumption increased (Lytle et al.,2000). Research suggests that the adolescentdiet is often poor, lacking in essential nutrients(Shepherd and Dennison, 1996), and

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opportunities for promoting the nutritionalstatus of adolescents should be identified.Factors such as lifestyle, developmental, social,and environmental influences can account forthe shifts in dietary choices as children moveinto adolescence (Story et al., 2002).

In recent years, several national and inter-national initiatives designed to promote healthyeating have identified the importance of youngpeople’s dietary choices for the short- and long-term health of the population (British MedicalAssociation, 2003; Vereecken et al., 2004b).However, interventions aimed at the modifi-cation of young people’s food choices have hadlimited impact. The limited impact of theseinterventions may be partly due to aninadequate understanding of the factors associ-ated with children’s and adolescents’ foodchoices (Story et al., 2002; Trew et al., 2006). Ina systematic review of the effectiveness of inter-ventions on young people’s healthy eating,Shepherd et al. reported that dietary influencesmay vary with age and many interventions werenot tailored to different age groups (Shepherdet al., 2006).

Recently, researchers have proposed morecomprehensive theoretical models of eatingbehaviour that take account of multiple inter-acting factors (Story et al., 2002; Vereeckenet al., 2004b). Story et al. adopted a theoreticalframework based on social cognitive theory(SCT) and the ecological model to explainyoung people’s food choices and eating beha-viours (Story et al., 2002).

SCT explains behaviour in terms of a triadic,reciprocal model in which a person’s behaviour,personal factors and the environment in whichthe behaviour is performed interact and influ-ence each other (Bandura, 1997; Glanz, 2008).Key constructs of SCT that are relevant toeating behaviour include observational learning(modelling), reinforcement (responses to aperson’s behaviour that increase or decrease thechances of its recurrence), self-efficacy (self-confidence to change behaviour) and self-control (Glanz, 1997). The ecological modelconsiders the relationship between individualsand their environments and behaviour is viewedas affecting and being affected by multiplelevels of influences including microsystems,mesosystems, exosystems and macrosystems(Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The microsystem is thesetting in which the child lives and interactswith the people and institutions closest to them,

such as parents, peers and school. Over time,the relative importance of these different inter-actions may change. For example, family maybe most important in early childhood, whereaspeers and school become more important inmiddle childhood and adolescence. The meso-system comprises the interrelations among thecomponents of the microsystem. These are thelinkages among the various settings in whichthe individual is involved, such as family, schoolor peer groups. Thus, parents may interact withteachers and the school system; both familymembers and peers may maintain relations witha community group. The exosystem is composedof settings that impinge on a child’s develop-ment but with which the child has largely indir-ect contact. For example, a parent’s work mayaffect the child’s life if it requires that theparent work late into the night. The most distalinfluence is the macrosystem, which consists ofthe values, ideologies and laws of the society orculture. A central concept of SCT and the eco-logical perspective is reciprocal determinism(McLeroy et al., 1988). This means that behav-iour and environment are reciprocal systemsand that influence occurs in both directions.That is, the environment shapes, maintains andconstrains behaviour, but people are not passivein the process, as they can create and changetheir environments.

This integrated theoretical framework basedon SCT and an ecological model has identifiedmultiple individual, social environmental, phys-ical environmental and macrosystem factors thatinteract to influence young people’s foodchoices (Story et al., 2002; Patrick and Nicklas,2005). These factors include hunger (Frenchet al., 1999; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999), foodpreferences (Shepherd and Dennison, 1996;Birch and Fisher, 1998), self-efficacy (Frennet al., 2003; Long and Stevens, 2004), foodappeal, time demands, convenience, cost(Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999; Bissonnette andContento, 2001), nutritional autonomy (Videonand Manning, 2003), parental food practices(Wardle et al., 2005; Van Strein et al., 2009),home food availability (Hearn et al., 1998; Bereand Klepp, 2005), socioeconomic position(Vereecken et al., 2004a), peer influences(Contento et al., 2006; Romero et al., 2009),school food environment (Kubik et al., 2003),eating out (French et al., 2001; Guthrie et al.,2002), food advertising (Kraak and Pelletier,1998) and social and cultural norms of eating

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(Trew et al., 2006). While some of these factorssuch as food preferences are consistent andinfluence food choice throughout life, others aredevelopmental factors uniquely associated withbeing an adolescent (Neumark-Sztainer et al.,1999; Story et al., 2002; Trew et al., 2006). Forexample, gaining autonomy and independenceare important developmental factors that influ-ence the eating patterns of adolescents (Bassettet al., 2007).

However, while a broad range of factors hasbeen identified in the literature as important forthe food choices of young people (Trew et al.,2006), few studies have set out to qualitativelyexamine young people’s own views (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999; Stevenson et al., 2007;Warren et al., 2008). In focus groups conductedwith American adolescents, factors perceived asimportant in influencing food choices includedhunger, appeal of food, lifestyle factors, foodavailability, parental influences, benefits offood, situation-specific factors, mood, bodyimage, media, habit and vegetarian beliefs(Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999). Stevenson et al.assessed Irish adolescents’ perceptions of, andinfluence upon, healthy eating behaviour(Stevenson et al., 2007). Consistent with thefindings of Neumark-Sztainer et al., there weremany interwoven factors influencing adoles-cents’ eating behaviour from personal and cog-nitive factors to peer, parental and mediainfluences (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999).Recently, Warren et al. examined age-associateddifferences in Welsh primary school-aged chil-dren’s perceptions of food (Warren et al., 2008).A key finding was the way in which control overfood choice and access to healthy/unhealthyfood options differed between younger andolder participants across home, school andeating out settings.

The present study will contribute to the exist-ing literature by exploring children’s and adoles-cents’ perspectives on the potential individual,social, environmental and developmentalfactors that influence their food choices. Theauthor sought to understand more fully fromthe young person’s own perspective the pro-cesses they use to make food choices and howthey engage with others in their environmentaround food choices. While a number of differ-ent interpretations of the phrase ‘food choice’exist, the intended definition for this study isthat provided by the Food Standard Agency(Food Standard Agency, 2004): ‘the selection of

foods for consumption, which results from thecompeting, reinforcing and interacting influ-ences of a variety of factors’.

Furthermore, although research has consideredrelationships between young people’s foodchoices and various factors, no known study hasset out to qualitatively explore differencesbetween children’s and adolescents’ perceptionsof factors influencing their food choices. Thepresent study builds on the recent study con-ducted by Warren et al. by examining develop-mental patterns with an older sample of childrenand adolescents (Warren et al., 2008). Researchon developmental differences in food choice caninform conceptual theories and frameworksuseful in understanding and explaining thedynamics of children’s and adolescents’ eatingbehaviours. Therefore, the aim of this study wasto explore differences between children’s andadolescents’ perceptions of influences on theirfood choices. Focus groups were conducted withthree different age groups of children (9–10, 13–14 and 16–18 years). These age groups werechosen in recognition that as children grow olderand enter adolescence, social and environmentalinfluences come into play which can change orreverse the eating behaviour established in thehome (Hamilton et al., 2000).

For the purpose of this article, participantsaged 9–10 years will be classified as children,participants aged 13–14 years will be classifiedas young adolescents and participants aged 16–18 years will be classified as older adolescents.

METHOD

Participants

The participants were 13 boys and 16 girls agedbetween 9 and 18 years (mean age ¼ 13.67,SD ¼ 3.24). Children and adolescents wererecruited from randomly selected Irish primaryand secondary schools from the IrishDepartment of Education and Science publishedlist of schools. One focus group was conductedwith older adolescents drawn from a local youthcentre. There were six single-sex focus groups,two at each age group, with approximately fiveparticipants per group (N ¼ 29).

Materials

A semi-structured interview schedule wasdeveloped to guide the focus group discussions.

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The following key topics were discussed with par-ticipants: young people’s usual food habits, likesand dislikes, health and nutrition beliefs, mealpatterns, views about the home food environ-ment, and the role of peers and school.

Procedure

Ethical approval to conduct the study wasobtained from the research ethics committeeaffiliated with the researchers’ university. Aparent/guardian of each participating child pro-vided written informed consent and childrenprovided verbal assent prior to commencementof the focus groups. The focus groups lastedbetween 40 and 60 minutes. The group discus-sions were tape-recorded, transcribed anddouble-checked for accuracy.

Data analysis

Focus group discussions were analysed separatelyusing the inductive thematic analysis approach(Hayes, 2000). This method permits data analysisto provide a rich and detailed account of data andthe themes emerging are strongly linked to thedata themselves (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Thecategories were derived using an inductive analy-sis procedure, which means that categories in thedata emerged following repeated readings of thetranscripts and identification of key concepts.Coding and categorizing was carried out usingQSR NVivo 7.0 data management software whichfacilitated the retrieval of coded chunks of tran-scripts (Qualitative Solutions and Research,2006). When all the data were categorized andcollated, the different categories were sorted intopotential themes and all the relevant coded dataextracts were collected within the identifiedthemes. To increase reliability, each individualtranscript was systematically re-examined manytimes. The categories and themes emerging fromthe data were created and organized by theresearcher. The existence of thematic categorieswas validated by two raters being reliably able toallocate responses to these particular categoryheadings.

RESULTS

Analyses of the child and adolescent dataresulted in the development of three key themes.Broadly, these encompassed intra-individual

factors: the link between food preferences andawareness of healthy eating, intra-familialfactors: the role of the home food environment,and extra-familial factors: eating away from thehome. For the purpose of this article, pseudonames have been used for each participant.

Intra-individual influences: the link between foodpreferences and awareness of healthy eating

Food preferences were consistently identified asa major influence on the food choices of youngpeople. Children and adolescents discussedtaste, texture, appearance, familiarity, smell,whether the food goes with other foods andhow the food is prepared as important in influ-encing their food choice decisions. Taste,texture and the appearance of food were threefactors that appeared to be crucial when makingdecisions about food.

I love my cauliflower and gravy because it’s all softand I love toast melted in butter (Hannah, 9 years).

Interestingly, most young people reported amarked preference for unhealthy foods, despitedemonstrating a clear understanding of what itmeans to eat healthily.

Interviewer: Are there any foods that you like to eatbut think you shouldn’t eat?

McDonalds (Darragh, 17 years)Kebabs (Cormac, 16 years)

Interviewer: Why do you think you shouldn’t eatthose foods?

Full of calories (Darragh, 17 years)Really greasy (Cormac, 16 years)

The term ‘healthy eating’ was invariably associ-ated with ‘fruit’, ‘vegetables’, ‘organic food’,‘carbohydrates’, ‘vitamins’ and also to a lesserextent ‘water’, ‘wholegrain cereals’ and ‘theright amount of carbohydrates and fat’.Children and adolescents discussed the short-term consequences of healthy eating andincluded reasons such as ‘good for energy’,‘strength’, ‘stay slim’, ‘it’s good for your skin’and ‘helps you move quicker’. Adolescents weremore aware of the importance of eating ahealthy diet when compared with children andmany adolescents discussed the long-term con-sequences of healthy eating:

It’s important [to eat healthy] so you can be healthy,so when you are older, it will be good for you.(Isabelle, 14 years).

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Links were also made by adolescents betweenfood and appearance, with fast food perceivedby adolescents as having negative consequenceson weight and facial appearance, and thereforea rationale for eating healthier foods. Forexample, fast foods were described by adoles-cents as ‘full of calories’ (Darragh, 17 years),‘really greasy’ (Colin, 18 years) and ‘bad foryour skin’ (Niall, 16 years).

For the most part, there appeared to be a‘gap’ between nutritional awareness in theoryand putting this knowledge into practice, byyoung people in their daily food choicedecisions. Despite having knowledge of healthyeating, young people’s food preferences, par-ticularly in relation to taste, texture and appear-ance, appeared to override this knowledgewhen making decisions about food.

Intra-familial influences: the role of the homefood environment

Family meals were identified by young peopleas important in influencing their food choices.Many young people reported that their foodchoices were somewhat limited during familymealtimes, as the food that was made availableat meals was what they ate:

Yeah definitely cos when I come home my dinner isalready made and I have to eat what I’m given,I don’t have a chance to say, ‘Ugh I don’t like that’(Melissa, 16 years).

Children and adolescents identified several bar-riers to family mealtimes including school,sports involvement, extracurricular activities,parent work schedules and being with friends.In addition, adolescents discussed their desirefor increasing autonomy and work schedules aspotential barriers to family meals. Many youngpeople reported that these barriers to mealtimesoften led to less healthful eating:

Well Saturday we don’t really have a good dinner, meand Mam are working so it’s usually fast food(Heather, 16 years).

Young people reported that when there werecompeting demands for time, family meals wereless likely to take place and the convenience offood became an important factor in influencingtheir food choices. Adolescents, in particular,identified time constraints and convenience aspotential contributors to unhealthy eating.

Adolescents reported that the amount of timethey have or are willing to spend preparing oreating a certain food influences their foodchoices:

I eat so much junk during the week when I’m rushingand stuff, it’s really bad the amount of rubbish I eat(Emily, 14 years).

Many adolescents also indicated that theywanted food that is convenient and ‘handy’,including foods that are quick or easy toprepare, foods that are practical for schoollunches and foods that do not demand clean-up:

Usually when mum is working I make pasta for Dadand we have it then, it’s quicker to make and easy.(Olivia, 14 years)

The majority of young people also talked abouttheir parents’ use of strategies to encourageconsumption of particular foods. Many childrenand young adolescents reported that certain‘unhealthy’ foods were restricted within thehome to limit their consumption of these foods:

Like we can just have milk or water with our dinner’cos orange is bad for you (Emily, 14 years).

Many young people also described how theirparents attempted to structure and control whatthey ate by having regular mealtimes, ‘I eat inthe sitting room with the family’ (John, 13years), by setting rules around meals, ‘We haveto stay there until everybody is finished [dinner]and then we can leave’ (Andrew, 9 years), byusing food as a reward, ‘Mum would say to mylittle brother, if you eat five piece of chickenyou can have something after dinner’ (Emily, 14years), and by using food as a treat, ‘Sometimeswe can go to McDonald’s . . . just to go for atreat’ (Matthew, 9 years).

Adolescents reported that, similar to familymeals, challenges to parental control cameabout when lifestyle factors such as time con-straints and convenience became important ininfluencing their food choices. It was interestingto note that as parental control began to dimin-ish and adolescents exercised more autonomyaround food, their food choices tended to beless healthy:

But Saturday evening like . . . when you are with yourfriends say if you’re in town, you end up eating fastfood (Nicole, 17 years).

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Thus, while parents had the majority of controlover their children’s and young adolescents’food choices, ‘she just makes it and she doesn’task me what I want’ (Anthony, 13 years), theyappeared to have little control over their olderadolescents’ choices. Adolescents increasedcontrol over their food choices was facilitatedby several factors such as an increase in eatingaway from the home, the ability to self-purchase, the ability to self-prepare food andcook, and their increased autonomy:

See she [Mum] gives me money for lunch so it’shardly expected [that I have] to make lunch. (Grace,16 years)

Extra-familial influences: eating away from thehome

It appeared from the data that adolescentsplaced more value on eating as a social activitywith peers than children. Many adolescentsreported an increase in eating outside of thehome with their peers at the weekends, andsome reported that they made less healthfulfood choices at the weekends:

At the weekend we go into town with our friends. OnSaturdays lots of people go to town and we gettogether town and eat out whenever we want. (John,13 years)

Many adolescents also talked about consumingmore unhealthy foods during school than athome and this was clearly linked to adolescentsincreased access to money and freedom to pur-chase sweet and snack foods during school. Incontrast, school was not recognized as an impor-tant influence on children’s food choices mainlybecause they reported bringing packed lunchesto school.

In school you are more tempted to eat fatty foods andsweets. It’s really tempting down town, even if youhave had something to eat you still might have some-thing down town [during school]. (Heather, 16 years).

Everyone buys Mr. Freeze [ice-pop] in the morning[before school] (Isabelle, 14 years).

One reason why adolescents may consume lesshealthy diets when eating out with peers or atschool is that adolescents have more nutritionalautonomy in these situations and can makechoices for themselves. As adolescents gainmore control over their food choices, cost

becomes an important factor often leading toless healthy eating.

And when your in town, usually you don’t have thatmuch money, so you’re like, ‘Ok let’s go to the cheap-est place,’ you save your money. You pass McDonaldsyou’re like ‘Let’s go in here’ (Heather, 16 years).

I wouldn’t get home till half nine everyday so I’d getsomething in town, so I’d have a roll with somethingin it or something like that, whatever I have moneyfor. (Elaine, 16 years)

As illustrated in the extracts above, older par-ticipants perceived cost as a major barrier tohealthy eating mainly when purchasing foodsfor themselves.

DISCUSSION

This qualitative study is unique in providing anin-depth account of young people’s food choicesfrom the viewpoints of children and adoles-cents. The qualitative viewpoints and experi-ences reported by Irish participants are broadlyin accordance with previous research (Storyet al., 2002; Patrick and Nicklas, 2005), andsuggest that there are multiple individual,social, physical and environmental factorsimportant for the food choices of children andadolescents. However, the results from ourstudy also contribute to previous research in thearea and highlight the importance of under-standing how children’s perspectives divergefrom or converge with the perspectives ofadolescents.

Findings from this study indicated that whileyoung people have a good understanding ofwhat it means to eat healthily, nutritionalknowledge may not be the main determinant offood choice. Rather, food preferences appear tobe the central motivation for young people’sfood choices. Other qualitative studies foundsimilar perceptions among young people andrevealed that factors such as taste, texture,appearance and smell were more importantthan nutritional knowledge in influencingfood choices (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999;Stevenson et al., 2007). Consistent with previousresearch (Warren et al., 2008), older participantsexercised more control over their food choicedecisions at home compared with younger par-ticipants. Parental control diminished amongadolescents and competed with adolescents’

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increasing independence around food and life-style factors (e.g. convenience, cost, time con-straints). Similarly, Neumark-Sztainer et al.identified lifestyle factors such as convenienceand time constraints as a primary influence onadolescents’ food choices (Neumark-Sztaineret al., 1999). In this study, adolescents increasedindependence around food was related to lesshealthy eating patterns. The findings supportresearch, suggesting that autonomy is a riskfactor for poor nutrition (Videon and Manning,2003), and in situations where adolescent havemore control, their food choices tend to be lesshealthy (De Bourdeaudhuij and Sallis, 2002).

The data in this study support the compatibleuse of an integrated theoretical framework basedon SCT and ecological theory in understandingand explaining young people’s food choices. SCTdefines behaviour as a triadic, dynamic and reci-procal interaction of personal factors, behaviourand the environment. The findings from thisstudy indicate that a broad range of interrelatedfactors may be associated with food choices: per-sonal factors (e.g. food preferences, taste, appealof food, convenience, time constraints, cost),socio-environmental factors (e.g. family, homefood availability, peers, school food environment,away-from-home eating) and behavioural factors(e.g. meal patterns).

The combined SCT and ecological modeldescribes the interaction and integration offactors within and across different levels of influ-ence (Story et al., 2002; Trew et al., 2006). Somefactors identified in this study clearly reflect thecomplex interaction of several domains in ayoung person’s life (e.g. lifestyle factors such astime constraints and convenience were identifiedas barriers to family meals for many adolescentsand facilitated away-from-home eating).

SCT and the ecological perspective highlightthe importance of socio-environmental factorsin influencing behaviours (Glanz, 2008). Thisstudy clearly illustrates the multiple contexts inwhich children’s lives are embedded within andthe influence of these different environmentallayers on young people’s eating behaviours.Socio-environmental factors may have a directinfluence on eating behaviour, for example, thefood made available at family meals is likely tobe related to the child’s or adolescent’s con-sumption of these foods. Socio-environmentalfactors may also have an indirect influence oneating behaviour, via attitudes/beliefs. Forexample, the food made available at family

meals will be associated with greater consump-tion if the child/adolescent views the food to beappealing, taste good, be convenient to eat andso on. The findings also demonstrate the influ-ence of competing demands, lifestyle factorsand busy schedules on family and individualfood practices. Therefore, the data in this studyappear to support a number of major principlesdescribed in SCT and the ecological model.Further research is needed to empirically testcomprehensive models based on SCT and theecological perspective explaining factors associ-ated with food intake pattern among childrenand adolescents.

The aim of this study was to explore differencesbetween children’s and adolescents’ views regard-ing influences on their food choices. There wereimportant developmental differences in factorsinfluencing food choice that were identified fromthe child and adolescent sample. Home environ-ment influences appeared to diminish during ado-lescence (Brown et al., 2006). For example, olderadolescents perceived parental feeding strategiesand family meals as less important in influencingtheir food choices compared with children.Adolescents also appeared to exercise morecontrol over their food choices at home, at schooland eating outside of the home with their peersthan younger children. Furthermore, in contrastto children, adolescents were particularly awareof issues such as lifestyle influences and anincrease in eating away from the home whichoften impinged on decisions to make healthyfood choices. Similarly, previous studies havereported that these factors are important ininfluencing adolescents’ food choices (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999; Story et al., 2002).

Nutritional independence is an importantdevelopmental factor uniquely associated withbeing an adolescent. It was evident from thedata that the transition to secondary school hadan important influence on adolescents’ indepen-dence around food. However, the findings fromthis study provide a limited understanding ofthe process by which adolescents and parentsnegotiate adolescents’ increasing independencearound eating. Further research that examinesthis process is clearly warranted.

Focus groups with children are a relativelyeasy way to learn about the ideas and opinionsof homogenous groups and they produce adiverse range of information (Heary andHennessy, 2002). A further important advan-tage of using focus groups with children is that

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the method recognizes the participants asexperts (Levine and Zimmerman, 1996). Theaim is essentially to obtain an understanding ofchildren’s views of the world. Thus, the resultsare likely to have high face validity and can beuseful in the development of intervention pro-grams, services or conceptual models.

Although the focus groups provided a greatdeal of rich data, the study was not without itslimitations. As with any qualitative study of thisnature, it is recognized that the findings arespecific to the participants in this study andcannot necessarily be extrapolated to the popu-lation as a whole. However, in as much as theparticipants in this study seemed typical ofmany children and adolescents in Irish societytoday, it is reasonable to expect that their per-ceptions were generally representative of thoseof other young people in a similar situation.These findings can, therefore, be reasonablyexpected to be informative and useful both inguiding future research and in informing nutri-tion education providers of the factors influen-cing children’s and adolescents’ food choices.

One of the limitations of the current study isthat the sample was not representative ofpeople from different socioeconomic and ethnicbackgrounds. Further studies are needed whichtarget a larger number of children and adoles-cents, from culturally diverse and lower socio-economic groups, to establish how people fromdifferent groups view influences on youngpeople’s food choices.

Another potential limitation of this study isthe generic nature of the author’s questions inthe focus groups. That is, the author asked par-ticipants what influenced their food choices ingeneral. Therefore, it is unclear what foods par-ticipants categorized as healthy versusunhealthy. Future research may benefit fromfocus groups that ask specific questions aboutinfluences on different categories of food (e.g.fruit, vegetables, carbohydrates, dairy products,sweets, fast food).

It is also possible that some children and ado-lescents were unwilling to discuss the influenceof certain factors (e.g. body image, dieting) in agroup setting because of the sensitivity of theseissues. However, the advantage of using focusgroups with young people is that children andadolescents may be encouraged to give theiropinions when they hear others do so and theirmemory may be prompted by the contributionof other participants (Hill et al., 1996).

This study has interesting implications forclinicians and researchers highlighting a need tobe aware of the similarities and differences in chil-dren’s and adolescents’ perceptions of factorsinfluencing food choices. Developing age-appropriate interventions that address the mostrelevant influences on food choice during child-hood and adolescence may be most effective inmodifying young people’s dietary patterns, and inthe longer term, help reduce the risk of obesity.

Finally, because young people’s food choicesare influenced by a wide range of factors span-ning the personal, socio-environmental andwider societal domains, it is important todevelop nutrition interventions that target thedifferent levels at which these influences occur(Patrick and Nicklas, 2005).

CONCLUSION

This study provided rich, in-depth informationabout young people’s perceptions of factorsinfluencing their food choices. Children’s andadolescents’ discussions of the multiple individ-ual, social and environmental influences onfood choice offered support for an integratedtheoretical framework of eating behaviourbased on SCT and an ecological perspective,while providing an understanding of the com-plexity of the food choice process. The findingsfrom this study add another deeper layer to ourunderstanding of food choice in young peopleby showing that there are developmental differ-ences in influences on food choice across child-hood and adolescence. It was evident from thedata that home environment influences dimin-ished during adolescence and competed withinfluences such as nutritional autonomy andlifestyle factors. In summary, the sources ofinfluence on Irish children’s and adolescents’food choices are multifaceted; support previousfood choice research; and demand furtherinquiry to establish appropriate interventionstailored to the needs of children andadolescents.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Noel HickeyResearch Bursary, Irish Heart Foundation andan Arts Faculty Fellowship from the NationalUniversity of Ireland Galway.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank all the childrenand adolescents who participated in the focusgroups, and their teachers.

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