School-based intervention on behavioral intention of adolescents regarding healthy diet in India

Abstract

IntroductionAdolescence is a distinctive period of life when intense physical, psychological, and cognitive development occurs. A healthy diet helps prevent various forms of malnutrition and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. The current study aimed to assess the change in behavioral intentions (measured based on the TPB) toward healthy dietary practices through health promotion intervention among adolescents studying in selected schools in an urban area of West Bengal, IndiaMethodsThe current study was a non-randomized controlled interventional study conducted among adolescents in either seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth grades and aged between 12 and 16 years. Two-step cluster analysis with maximum likelihood estimation identified the intenders of a healthy diet. The intervention effect was measured using Relative Risk (RR) for being in the higher intention cluster through Generalized Linear Model (GLM) with a log-linear link under Poisson distribution assumptions and robust standard errors. A P-value of 0.05 or lesser was considered statistically significant.ResultsThere was no statistically significant difference in the mean score of “Attitude” in both groups. The mean score of “Subjective Norm” among the intervention group increased after intervention, and the difference was statistically significant. The mean score of “Perceived behavioral control” in the intervention group increased after the intervention, but the difference was statistically not significant. The intervention group's post-intervention proportion of intenders increased, and the difference was statistically significant. The relative risk of becoming an intender for healthy diet consumption in the Intervention group compared to the Control group was 2.07 (1.44–2.97).ConclusionsThe intervention package effectively brought about a positive change in behavioral intention toward healthy dietary practices among adolescents. Model-based and construct-oriented intervention packages can be adopted in school-setting to promote behavioral intention toward a healthy diet.

Students’ eating styles and palatable eating motives during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The application of this approach for implementing GENTAS among students is expected to be more appropriate and effective in reducing obesity rate. This could be introduced as a new approach and could be added to the list of the existing approaches for eating behavior interventions, such as simple intervention [39], diet and exercises [40], intervention addressing food-related impulsivity [41], educational intervention [42], healthy eating behavior [43], web-based nutrition intervention [44], implicit process interventions [45], intervention addressing behavioral intention [46]. Limitations of the current study included the method to collect demographic information of the participants in the time of COVID-19 pandemic, where the information was obtained based on participants' report only.…”

Multi-strategy instructional intervention for healthy eating intention among school going adolescents: A quasi-experimental study

“…Nutrition education is essential for encouraging healthy eating any strategy focused on changing behavior. Nutrition education in schools during early life is a key factor in uencing students' eating behaviors [30] TPB was used as a theoretical framework in many studies on healthy diets and was found effective in increasing healthy eating intention among adolescents [20,25,27,31]. Another systematic review of the theory of planned behavior in behavior change intervention was conducted by Hardman et al [32].…”

“…The calculation also factored in a design effect of 1.5 and included an attrition rate of 10%. Based on a school-based intervention conducted by [27], The standard deviation of attitude toward a healthy diet among the pre-intervention group was 27.15 and among the post-intervention group 18.03 respectively, and the average mean difference was 15.67. Thus, the minimum sample size required in each group was 60.…”

Drivers of consumers’ intention to adopt sustainable healthy dietary patterns: evidence from China

“…First, it expands the scope of research on the TPB in the fields of food and diet consumption. As a social psychological model that can effectively identify and elucidate consumer behaviour and behavioural intention, the TPB has seen applications in the field of food/diet consumption behaviour, but they have focused on organic food purchasing, environmentally friendly food consumption, healthy eating behaviour, and food waste reduction behaviour (Al-Swidi et al, 2014;Visschers et al, 2016;Jha et al, 2023). Meanwhile, our study extends the TPB in terms of health consciousness, environmental concern, and past eating behaviour and applies it to explore the main influencing factors and internal mechanisms of Chinese consumers' intention to adopt SHDP.…”

“…The TPB has generally been used to predict consumers' behavioural intentions and has been widely used in related studies on health, pro-environment, and sustainable consumption behaviours (McEachan et al, 2011;Shukri et al, 2016;Tang et al, 2023). Some scholars have used the TPB as a theoretical basis to predict and explain individual intentions regarding healthy or sustainable diets (Visschers et al, 2016;Biasini et al, 2021;Jha et al, 2023). Many of these previous studies have focused on healthy eating intentions, and the few have focused on sustainable eating intentions to reduce food waste.…”