How Food Rules at Home Influence Independent Adolescent Food Choices

The prevalence of unhealthy dietary behaviors among adolescents is high. We examined the effect of having health-oriented food rules at home on the healthiness of adolescents' independent food choices, and the necessity of parental oversight for such rules to be effective.

We surveyed a socioeconomically and racially diverse San Francisco Bay Area public high school in May 2017 (N = 1,246). We used ordinal logistic regressions to assess the relationships between adolescent-reported presence of health-oriented food rules at home and the healthiness of snacks selected by adolescents in a raffle, which included a randomized controlled experiment to manipulate the level of parental approval students needed to pick up their snacks.

Adolescents reporting at least one health-oriented food rule at home were significantly more likely to choose healthier snacks in the raffle (adjusted odds ratio, 1.85; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.41-2.45). Telling adolescents that a parent needed to approve the snacks did not have a significant effect on snack choice healthiness relative to a no-approval baseline condition (adjusted odds ratio, 1.01; 95% CI .55-1.86). Post hoc analyses suggest that rules may affect adolescent food-related attitudes and perceptions of parental reactions; for example, adolescents with rules reported that their parents would be more disappointed (adjusted mean difference on five-point scale, .5; 95% CI .36-.64) if they made an unhealthy food choice.

Having health-oriented food rules at home is associated with healthier snack choices. Findings suggest that adolescents with rules also hold beliefs that may correspond to healthier independent dietary choices.