Health-Related Behaviors, Social Factors, and Adolescents’ Dietary Habits in a Rural City in Greece

Ioanna Tsamita & Konstantinos Karteroliotis

Department of Physical Education and Sports Science, Kapodestrian University of Athens, Hellas

Abstract

Adolescents΄ dietary habits (DH) play an important role in their physical development and evolution and there are a number of factors and other health-related behaviors that may affect them. The aim of the present study was the examination of the relationships between DH of 321 high school students and social factors (par- ents’ economical and educational level, parents’ DH) and health-related behaviors (physical activity/PA, seden- tary activities/SA, body mass index/BMI, smoking, alcohol consuming). DH were assessed with the «Food Fre- quency Questionnaire - FFQ» (Cavadini et al., 1999), PA was evaluated with the «Self Administered Physical Ac- tivity Checklist - SAPAC» (Sallis et al., 1996), and the rest of the variables were assessed with a questionnaire which was completed by both students and parents. Data showed several significant relationships between: (a) economical level of the family and students’ cereals and fruits consumption, (b) parents’ educational level and students’ dairy consumption, (c) unhealthy food consumption from parents and unhealthy food consumption from students, and (d) examined health-related behaviors and certain types of food consumption. In conclusion, Greek high school students’ DH from rural areas were related to some social factors, and health-related behaviors, which could be examined in planning intervention programs for adolescents in order to follow a healthy diet.

Keywords: healthy eating, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, high school students