J Nutr Health.  2024 Feb;57(1):136-152. 10.4163/jnh.2024.57.1.136.

Development of evaluation items for adolescents’ dietary habits and nutritional practices reflecting eating behaviors and food environment

• Lim J
• Seo HJ
• Oh J

• KMID: 2553699
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4163/jnh.2024.57.1.136

Abstract

Purpose
A comprehensive evaluation item was developed to assess adolescent dietary habits and nutritional practices, considering food intake, eating behaviors, and food culture, such as social support and food environment.
Methods
The 59 candidate items of the evaluation checklist were obtained based on the results of the eighth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, Korea Dietary Reference Intakes, dietary guidelines for adolescents, Youth Risk Behavior Survey data, national nutrition policies and dietary guidelines, and literature reviews. Four hundred and three middle and high school students residing in metropolitan areas participated in a survey using the 58-item checklist, which was selected through expert evaluation and content validity ratio analysis. The construct validity of the assessment tool for the quality of adolescent diets was assessed by exploratory factor analyses to determine if the checklist items were organized properly and whether the responses to each item were distributed adequately.
Results
The Bartlett sphericity test was significant for each area (p <0.001), and the eigen values were greater than one. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and cumulative proportions by areas were food intake (0.765 and 56.8%, respectively), eating behaviors (0.544 and 64.8%, respectively), and food environment (0.699 and 62.4%, respectively). Twenty-two checklists were determined for the final evaluation items for the adolescents’ dietary habits and nutritional practices and were categorized into three distinct factors: food intake (10 items), eating behaviors (4 items), and food environment (8 items).
Conclusion
The evaluation items for adolescent dietary habits and nutritional practices is a useful checklist for easily and quickly assessing the dietary qualities and reflecting Korean adolescents and their food environmental factors related to a sustainable diet.

Keyword

adolescent; checklist; dietary habits; nutrition surveys; social support