Segmenting Adolescents Around Social Influences on Their Eating Behavior: Findings From Italy

Abstract

Adolescence is a fundamental period in everyone’s life. Teenagers have for the first time the possibility to take on responsibility about their choices in many domains, building their own “lifestyle.” Among these domains, food is one of the most important considering the implications for their future health. Deep knowledge of teenagers’ behaviors and of factors affecting their choices can support tailored health policy and social marketing interventions for this population. The purpose of this article is to prospectively segment teenagers around food socialization factors as influencing factors of food preferences, attitudes, and behaviors of adolescents. A cluster analysis (CA) was performed on a sample of 4,749 respondents aged 15 and 18 years coming from Tuscany (Italy). Considering food well-being and consumer socialization frameworks, the CA used three food socialization variables related to influences and source of information/advices at intrapersonal, interpersonal, and broader societal levels. Five distinct groups were identified and described, showing deep differences in the adolescents’ food behaviors corresponding to different socialization patterns. Adolescents who reported broader food socialization at all investigated levels present better lifestyle habits. Social marketers, policy makers, and health professionals can work on specific influencing food socialization factors for tailoring marketing interventions and increasing their positive impact on adolescents’ food behaviors.

In the Labyrinth of Dietary Patterns and Well-Being—When Eating Healthy Is Not Enough to Be Well

“…It led to the reorientation in the approach to food consumption processes, with emphasis put on the need for developing proper attitudes and behaviours, focused not only on health, but also on overall well-being. As a result, food consumption ceased to be perceived only as the provision of nutrients, but the psychological [6,14,[36][37][38][39]; and social [29,40,41] implications of this process for an individual were also recognized. The holistic approach to the role of food and dietary practices in human life takes into account the social and psychological dimension of consumption, abandoning the orientation which stems from the biomedical model of health [42].…”

A longitudinal assessment of chronic care pathways in real-life: self-care and outcomes of chronic heart failure patients in Tuscany

“…Moreover, attention should be placed to the target of the intervention since those who have the most need to adhere to the recommendations are often those less willing to do so. Segmentation is a very effective way for finding well-defined homogenous groups in larger populations to effectively design and target behavioural change interventions, more effectively measure outcomes, address specific cognitive and behavioural patterns, and change behaviours of specific homogenous groups [ 62 ].…”

Physical Activity in the Daily Life of Adolescents: Factors Affecting Healthy Choices from a Discrete Choice Experiment

“…As proposed by De Rosis et al [ 78 ], when designing health promotion initiatives following the peer-to-peer approach, the groups of adolescents characterized by healthy behaviors could be trained, activated, and engaged as positive testimonials and facilitators of positive lifestyles towards their peers, thus promoting healthier communities. Nevertheless, peer-to-peer initiatives are not a priori successful [ 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 ].…”

“…The differences across adolescents’ groups (males/females, from high/low educated families, living nearby green areas or not) reflect differences in PA opportunities and preferences, as well as to the value given to the PA itself. More vulnerable adolescents coming from disadvantaged contexts should be carefully targeted by specific incentives and policies [ 78 , 134 , 135 ].…”

“…Different factors can affect the behavior of people in different age groups [ 77 ]. In addition to the various psychological factors affecting the behavior of young people [ 78 , 79 ], peers, family, and social media can also influence the green and healthy behaviors of adolescents [ 75 , 78 , 80 , 81 ]. Urban design, and in particular the presence of infrastructure (e.g., pedestrian roads) and the communication of their availability, have been found as determinants of the adolescents’ choice architecture in terms of transport for short travels, as mentioned above [ 82 , 83 ].…”