07/19/06 Adolescent Dining Behavior

Schools can ban soda and candy machines, fast food outlets can add apple slices and salad to their menus and pediatricians can preach until they are blue in the face about the perils of childhood obesity but researchers have concluded something most of us have suspected all along, unless healthy dining practices begin at home, there isn't much hope of changing adolescent dining behavior. This fact is reiterated in recent results of a online study created by dietitians and nutritionists who feel certain that they have discovered the key ingredient that helps adolescents make healthier food choices. Their family. The team from University of California poised societal and psychological behavioral questions to 878 kids from ages 11-15 and concluded that family dining habits played the biggest role in whether young people selected fruits and veggies or opted for junk food. Diligent parents can establish lifelong healthy dining patterns even during adolescents by adhering to household eating rules that incorporated healthy snacks and correct portion size.