Parents as models and controls of young people's eating behavior

Abstract

The purpose was to determine, if family controls of junk food and the eating patterns of both the father and the mother have an influence on healthy eating behavior of adolescents. 396 students from a public secondary school in the Federal District of Mexico participated in the study. 52.5% of them are male and 47.5% are female, with a mean age of 12.9 years. In order to evaluate the adolescents’ healthy eating behavior, as well as the parental eating patterns and their controls of junk food, the Adolescent Health and Development Questionnaire of Jessor et al. (2003) was adapted. The results indicated that in the case of the male adolescent, the eating patterns of both, father and mother, as well as the controls of junk food predicted healthy eating behavior of the young man. In the case of females, the results showed that the only predicting variable was the eating pattern of the mother.