Sociocultural Influences on Dietary Practices and Physical Activity Behaviors of Rural Adolescents—A Qualitative Exploration (original) (raw)
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Public Health Nutrition, 2020
Objective: To explore, adolescents’ and caregivers’ perspectives, about shaping of diet and physical activity habits in rural Konkan, India. Design: Five focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted with adolescents and two with caregivers. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Setting: FGD were conducted in secondary schools located in remote rural villages in the Ratnagiri district, Konkan region, Maharashtra, India. Participants: Forty-eight adolescents were recruited including twenty younger (10–12 years) and twenty-eight older (15–17 years) adolescents. Sixteen caregivers (all mothers) were also recruited. Results: Three themes emerged from discussion: (i) adolescents’ and caregivers’ perceptions of the barriers to healthy diet and physical activity, (ii) acceptance of the status quo and (iii) salience of social and economic transition. Adolescents’ basic dietary and physical activity needs were rarely met by the resources available and infrastructure of the villages. The...
Public Health Nutrition, 2020
Objective: Adolescent diet, physical activity and nutritional status are generally known to be sub-optimal. This is an introduction to a special issue of papers devoted to exploring factors affecting diet and physical activity in adolescents, including food insecure and vulnerable groups. Setting Eight settings including urban, peri-urban and rural across sites from five different low-and middle-income countries. Design: Focus groups with adolescents and caregivers carried out by trained researchers. Results: Our results show that adolescents, even in poor settings, know about healthy diet and lifestyles. They want to have energy, feel happy, look good and live longer, but their desire for autonomy, a need to 'belong' in their peer group, plus vulnerability to marketing exploiting their aspirations, leads them to make unhealthy choices. They describe significant gender, culture and contextspecific barriers. For example, urban adolescents had easy access to energy dense, unhealthy foods bought outside the home, whereas junk foods were only beginning to permeate rural sites. Among adolescents in Indian sites, pressure to excel in exams meant that academic studies were squeezing out physical activity time. Conclusions: Interventions to improve adolescents' diets and physical activity levels must therefore address structural and environmental issues and influences in their homes and schools, since it is clear that their food and activity choices are the product of an interacting complex of factors. In the next phase of work, the Transforming Adolescent Lives through Nutrition consortium will employ groups of adolescents, caregivers and local stakeholders in each site to develop interventions to improve adolescent nutritional status.
Ibrahim Cardiac Medical Journal, 2019
Background & objective: With rapid improvement of socioeconomic condition of developing countries in the last two decades, a rapid change in the nutritional behaviour and activity of adolescents is evident leading to increased prevalence of overweight and obesity among them. The present cross-sectional survey was undertaken to evaluate the dietary and exercise behavior of the adolescents studying in rural secondary schools. Methods: This study was conducted in the Department of Community Medicine, Rajshahi Medical College, Rajshahi from April-May 2019. Data were collected from secondary schools of Puthia. A total of 535 students from two secondary schools participated in the study. In order to ensure an equal representation from both sexes we chose one boys' and one girls' schools. Every alternate students of those schools from class VI-X were then included in study as respondents. Weight and height of the selected students were first taken followed by interview. Result: In the present study 15% of the secondary school children were found underweight and 18% were overweight or obese. About 65% of the of the respondents' family were more or less financially solvent. Fifty percent of the adolescents reported that they were accustomed to a healthy balanced diet with 45% reportedly taking fruits and 60% taking plenty of vegetables every day. But only 17.3% took 3 or more servings of fruits a day (the minimum recommended fruit intake). Thirty percent of the adolescents were used to having high carbohydrate and fat. In terms of exercise practice, two-thirds (67.3%) of the students had healthy practice. The predominantly practiced exercise was running (65%) followed by cycling (64.4%), playing cricket (63.6%), football (57.2%) and fast walking (52.2%). However, with respect to number of days of exercise in a week and duration of exercise each day a sizable portion of the students' practice was not considered an ideal one. The respondents who did not practice any kinds of exercise or sports activities, most frequently mentioned their 'preoccupation with coaching or private tutors' (79.4%) as reasons of inactivity, followed by non-encouragement about playing by their parents (71.4%) and teachers (65.5%). Nearly 60% were interested to play but they did not have any playing field nearby home. Nearly one-third of the students pass > 1 hour of their leisure time by watching TV or sitting at computer or playing games or other activities on mobile. Opinion-seeking questionnaire revealed that 20-50% of the respondents had misconception on healthy diet, food, energy-rich food, balanced diet and their ability to make a healthy choice for food in any one of these food & diet-related issues. Boys are more likely to be obese and underweight than the girls. Conclusion: Unhealthy dietary behavior is widespread among secondary school adolescents in rural area. About one-third of the rural secondary school children are physically inactive and predominant reasons of their inactivity are preoccupation with coaching center or private tutors or no incentive for playing from the parents or teachers. The knowledge level of the students on healthy diet and food is not up to the desired level to make healthy choices for food themselves. Both unhealthy dietary behavior & inactivity might have contributed to inappreciably adverse nutritional status of the secondary level school children.
Background: Dietary behaviours and physical activity are modifiable risk factors to address increasing levels of obesity among children and adolescents, and consequently to reduce later cardiovascular and metabolic disease. This paper explores perceptions, attitudes, barriers, and facilitators related to healthy eating and physical activity among adolescent girls in rural South Africa. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in the rural Agincourt subdistrict, covered by a health and sociodemographic surveillance system, in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. Semistructured "duo-interviews" were carried out with 11 pairs of adolescent female friends aged 16 to 19 years. Thematic content analysis was used. Results: The majority of participants considered locally grown and traditional foods, especially fruits and vegetables, to be healthy. Their consumption was limited by availability, and these foods were often sourced from family or neighbourhood gardens. Female caregivers and school meal programmes facilitated healthy eating practices. Most participants believed in the importance of breakfast, even though for the majority, limited food within the household was a barrier to eating breakfast before going to school. The majority cited limited accessibility as a major barrier to healthy eating, and noted the increasing intake of "convenient and less healthy foods". Girls were aware of the benefits of physical activity and engaged in various physical activities within the home, community, and schools, including household chores, walking long distances to school, traditional dancing, and extramural activities such as netball and soccer. Conclusions: The findings show widespread knowledge about healthy eating and the benefits of consuming locally grown and traditional food items in a population that is undergoing nutrition transition. Limited access and food availability are strong barriers to healthy eating practices. School meal programmes are an important facilitator of healthy eating, and breakfast provision should be considered as an extension of the meal programme. Walking to school, cultural dance, and extramural activities can be encouraged and thus are useful facilitators for increasing physical activity among rural adolescent girls, where the prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing.
Maternal & Child Nutrition, 2019
Adolescence is a critical period characterized by rapid physical, psychological, and social development and growth. In Bangladesh, high rates of undernutrition persist among adolescent females living in low-income households. Prevalence of adolescent marriage and pregnancy is extremely high, with almost half of Bangladeshi women giving birth by 18 years of age. Qualitative research was carried out from April to June 2017 to examine individual, social, and environmental factors influencing eating behaviours of female adolescents between 15 and 19 years of age living in lowincome families in urban and rural settings in Bangladesh. Methods included freelisting exercises (33), key informant interviews (11), in-depth interviews (24), direct observations (16), and focus group discussions (12). Findings show that household food insecurity necessitates adjustments in meal food quality and frequency. Gender norms prescribe that females receive small meal portions and make sacrifices in food consumption so that male family members can eat more. Work and school schedules cause long breaks between meal consumption, restricting food intake of adolescent females for extended periods. Gender discrimination and its manifestations likely amplify susceptibility to psychological stresses in adolescent females. An inferior social position makes adolescent females living in food insecure households vulnerable to undernutrition, with factors affecting food deprivation increasing as they approach childbearing. Policies to increase age of marriage and reduce adolescent pregnancy must continue. Programmes must ensure that school-going adolescents eat adequately during the school day. Prolonging school education and strengthening the economic viability of women should alter cultural expectations regarding marriage age and normative female roles.
Annals of agricultural and environmental medicine : AAEM, 2011
The proper lifestyle of a child, including proper eating habits, should be monitored to ensure proper physical and psychological development. This applies particularly to rural areas which are economically, socially and educationally backward. The study included 1,341 rural schoolchildren and adolescents aged 9-13 years (734 females, 607 males). The representative survey research was conducted in 2008, making use of an original survey questionnaire. The results showed that the majority of respondents eat improperly. 83.2% of them have regular breakfast, and 62.6% have regular light lunch. Most respondents do not eat more than 4 meals a day (usually 3-4). It is worrying that the consumption of sweets is high (34.9% of the surveyed group eat them regularly), whereas fruit and vegetable consumption is low. In this study, relationships between types of diet and such descriptive variables as gender, parents' educational status, and economic situation of the households are described. ...
Frontiers in Nutrition
BackgroundDiet being a modifiable factor, its relationship with cardiometabolic risk is of public health interest. The vast majority of studies on associations of dietary patterns with cardiometabolic risk indicators among adolescents are from high-income countries and urban settings. We sought to describe dietary patterns and examine their associations with selected cardiometabolic risk indicators–waist circumference (WC), systolic blood pressure, fasting lipid profile and insulin resistance–along with its gender stratification among adolescents in a low-income, rural setting.MethodsThis cross-sectional study utilized data from the 15-year follow-up of the Maternal and Infant Nutrition Interventions in Matlab (MINIMat) cohort in southeast Bangladesh. The children who were born as singletons to the mothers randomized in the MINIMat trial and had valid birth anthropometrics were eligible for the follow-up. We employed a single, qualitative 24-hour recall to assess diet. Dietary patte...
American Journal of Qualitative Research, 2021
Adolescent obesity is a major public health concern, increasingly affecting low and middleincome countries (LMICs) undergoing the nutrition transition. In developed countries, governments had the time to adjust to this rise in the consequent non-communicable diseases (NCDs), whereas the developing world is facing a triple burden of nutrition-related disease simultaneously. However, amidst the nutrition transition, drivers to obesity may differ within the same country especially between the urban and rural areas, depending on the context and environmental factors. In order to unravel how the nutrition transition process unfolds in both urban and rural areas, an exploration of the factors affecting adolescents' lifestyle and eating behaviors, in the current context was deemed appropriate. Almost similar behaviors were perceived between the urban and rural area, showcasing the impact of the nutrition transition in both areas although different underlying factors were stated. The factors identified in this study were grouped and discussed based on the socio-ecological model (SEM) highlighting the importance of the social and environmental influences on adolescents' eating behaviors. Given the findings of this study regarding the dramatic changes affecting both urban and rural areas regarding the number of meals consumed away from home, the increase in fast-food consumption and the increase in sedentary lifestyles, new challenges in relation to adolescent obesity prevention in LMICs are created. The creation of supportive local environments, in both urban and rural areas, represents an important avenue where eating behaviors concerns, and thus adolescents' obesity can be addressed.
Public Health Nutrition, 2020
Objective:To explore influences on the diet and physical activity of adolescents living in Mumbai slums, from the perspectives of adolescents and their caregivers.Design:Three investigators from Mumbai conducted six focus group discussions.Setting:The study was conducted in suburban Mumbai slums.Participants:Thirty-six adolescents (aged 10–12 and 15–17 years) and twenty-three caregivers were recruited through convenience sampling.Results:The findings highlighted the complex negotiations between adolescent and caregivers surrounding adolescent junk food consumption and physical activity opportunities. Caregivers learned recipes to prepare popular junk foods to encourage adolescents to eat more home-cooked, and less ‘outside’, food, yet adolescents still preferred to eat outside. To adolescents, the social aspect of eating junk food with friends was an important and enjoyable experience. Caregivers felt that they had no control over adolescents’ food choices, whereas adolescents felt ...
Agroalimentaria
There are approximately 253 million adolescents in India, and their nutritional needs are high. Consumption of fast food, high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar, is high among adolescents. Considering the lack of information on the knowledge and practices related to eating patterns among adolescents in India, this paper reports the practice, perception, and knowledge about healthy and unhealthy eating habits of this segment of its population in urban and peri-urban communities. Qualitative data were collected during the formative stage of an intervention study. Fifty in-depth interviews and eight focus group discussions were conducted in two communities in Delhi, the national capital of India (28º 36’ 36” N & 77º 13’ 48” E). For data analysis, a deductive approach was adopted, and a thematic content analysis was performed. Practices, perception and knowledge, and seeking information were the themes that emerged, and it was verified that low income is a limiting factor for acquisitio...