Changing trends in young people’s food behaviour and wellbeing in England in relation to family affluence between 2005 and 2014

ABSTRACT

Research shows that healthy eating improves outcomes for children and that inequalities in diet are socially determined. However, little is known about how associations between household income and the diet intake of children and young people change over time. Descriptive analysis was carried out using the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey data for England for the years 2005, 2009 and 2014 to examine how breakfast, fruit, vegetable and soft drink consumption compares for young people aged 11–15 years by family affluence (low versus medium/high), gender and wellbeing measures. The results show young people in the low FAS group generally reporting less healthy eating behaviours, and differences by gender such as more soft/sugary drink consumption and lower consumption of fruit and vegetables for boys. Young people in the low FAS group also tend to have lower self-reported ratings on other wellbeing measures examined. There is evidence of a ‘closing gap’ between the FAS groups over time in terms of some behaviours. The patterns reported here are complex to interpret but do highlight some potentially positive effects of policies for addressing poor diets and dietary inequalities as well as some concerns given the UK context of continuing political uncertainty.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescence
• health
• fruit
• vegetables
• HBSC

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study for England for granting us access to the 2005, 2009 and 2014 data for the analysis reported in this paper. The HBSC web site (http://www.hbsc.org/) includes a link for downloading the open access survey data for 2005/6. We would also like to acknowledge the rest of the UK research project team, Julia Brannen, Abigail Knight, Laura Hamilton and Penny Mellor.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Antonia Simon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3117-2927

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results have received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] /ERC grant agreement n° 337977.