Dietary habits and family correlates whether family has any role in shaping the dietary habits of adolescents? A school based cross-sectional study from Mangaluru, Karnataka State, India

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is widely defined as the time in life when the developing individual attains the skills and attributes necessary to become a productive and reproductive adult. Objective: to study the dietary habits of school going adolescents and role of family in shaping the habits.

Material and methods: This Cross-sectional study was conducted in Mangalore city of Dakshina Kannada also known as South Canara a coastal district situated in the southern part of Karnataka state for a period of two years from November 2014 to September 2016. Adolescents aged 10 to 19 years studying in grade VII to grade X of two selected schools and their parents/guardians.

Results: Majority of the adolescents viz., 63.9%, 90.0%, and 68.7% had inadequate intake of proportion of fruits, green leafy vegetables and junk foods per day during the past 7 days respectively.

As seen in table 2, gender, number of siblings in family, father literacy and religion were the socio-demographic variables found to have statistically significant association with fruit intake with p<0.05.

Conclusions: This study throws light on the existence of various health needs of the adolescents and should be addressed by their parents and they should be offered counseling services.

Keywords: Dietary habits, adolescents, fruits, green leafy vegetables, junk foods