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Indian Pediatr 2010;47: 888-890 |
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Snack Consumption among Underprivileged
Adolescent Girls |
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M Shrivastav* and S Thomas
From the Department of Food and Nutrition, Lady Irwin
College, New Delhi, India.
Correspondence to:
[email protected]
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We conducted this school based cross-sectional study to assess the snack
consumption pattern of 702 adolescent girls (11-14 years) in nine
government schools selected from three districts of Delhi. The results
indicated high preference for snacks. Parents and teachers were
identified as the most influential factors determining their food
choices.
Key words: Adolescent, Girls, Snacks.
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Children and adolescents have reported
frequent snacking that can be a significant contributor to the energy
content of their diets(1). This affects the consumption of normal
nutritious diet. A study among school children in Nepal revealed that fast
foods were preferred by more than two-thirds, and that advertising
influenced preferences in 80% of them(2). Habits acquired in adolescence
persist into adult life. Therefore behavior developed in young people may
have important long-term consequences on health.
We conducted a school based cross-sectional study in
nine government girl’s schools, randomly selected from three districts of
Delhi. Prior written permission was taken from the Directorate of
Education (Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi). Informed
written consent was obtained from the principals of selected schools,
concerned teachers, students and their parents. From each of the selected
schools, one section of each grade (VII and VIII) was chosen randomly. All
the students present at the time of administration of questionnaire in
each section formed the study sample. Thus the study sample comprised 702
adolescent girls (11-14 years). A questionnaire was developed to elicit
information regarding the consumption of different type of snacks,
purchasing snacks in school and from vendors and various factors
influencing food choices of adolescent girls.
The snacking pattern of the subjects is presented in
Table I. The frequency of consuming different categories of
snacks was generally once to thrice a week. Almost all the children had
strong liking for fast foods, fried foods and sweet snacks. Chowmein,
maggi, samosa, ice-cream (mainly ice candies), chocolate and toffee
formed the popular snack items for children. This finding is consistent
with some other studies done on adolescents(3-5). Another study reported
that 60% of snacks consumed by teenagers are high in fat and low in
nutritional quality(6). Procuring food items available in school was
common; only 29.3% never bought anything in school.
Table I
Snacking Pattern Of Adolescent Girls
| Category of Snacks |
Frequency per week (%
of subjects) |
| |
Never |
Once |
Twice |
Thrice |
More than thrice |
| Fast foods |
3.3 |
30.8 |
28.5 |
17.9 |
19.5 |
| Fried foods |
1.9 |
26.1 |
29.1 |
25.6 |
17.4 |
| Sweet snacks |
5.6 |
32.1 |
22.9 |
17.7 |
21.8 |
| Other sweet items(toffee, chocolate etc.) |
5.3 |
21.9 |
22.4 |
15.2 |
35.2 |
Furthermore, 62.1% subjects reported that they
purchased food items from the vendors around their school or home, two to
three times in a week, especially tikki/chaat (29.8%), chole
bhature (23.2%) and chowmein (27.5%). Only close to one-fourth
of the sample reported consuming fruits (23.5%) and juices (25.0%) from
the vendors.
Parents (75%) were the most influential factor
influencing their diet, followed by teachers (54%) and friends (42.5%).
Media was not perceived as a major influencer by the subjects. Parental
behavior affects socio-affective context in which foods are presented and
the context has been found important for the formation of food
preferences(7).
The present study shows high preference for convenient,
ready-to-eat, easily available, high calorie snacks even among adolescent
girls belonging to low socioeconomic status. However in this study group,
the frequency of consumption of such snacks was not very high. This could
probably be due to limited economic resources and limited variety
available near home and in schools. It is important to make students aware
on the issue of judicious selection of food items as well as food safety,
thus empowering them for sound decision making. There must be proper
provision of nutritious food in school so as to ensure that even if some
students are not able to eat breakfast or bring packed lunch (tiffin),
they do not resort to snacking.
Acknowledgment
We thank the Directorate of Education (Government of
National Capital Territory of Delhi) for granting permission to conduct
this study.
Competing interests: None.
Funding: University Grants Commission
References
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