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The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds

Young adults are the highest consumers of food prepared outside home, which has been linked to weight gain. The aim of this qualitative research was to gather opinions from young adults about what influences their food choice when eating out and if they so desired, what might enable healthy choices....

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Autores principales: Allman-Farinelli, Margaret, Rahman, Hassan, Nour, Monica, Wellard-Cole, Lyndal, Watson, Wendy L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6769704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31540273
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11092217
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author Allman-Farinelli, Margaret
Rahman, Hassan
Nour, Monica
Wellard-Cole, Lyndal
Watson, Wendy L.
author_facet Allman-Farinelli, Margaret
Rahman, Hassan
Nour, Monica
Wellard-Cole, Lyndal
Watson, Wendy L.
author_sort Allman-Farinelli, Margaret
collection PubMed
description Young adults are the highest consumers of food prepared outside home, which has been linked to weight gain. The aim of this qualitative research was to gather opinions from young adults about what influences their food choice when eating out and if they so desired, what might enable healthy choices. Thirty-one adults aged 18 to 30 years participated in four focus groups (females = 24). Predetermined questions were used to guide discussions which were audiotaped then transcribed. The content was organized into themes and sub-themes using NVivo software. Two broad groupings arose—personal behaviors and changes to physical and social food environments. For many, eating out was viewed as a special occasion so that healthy food was not a priority and despite understanding health consequences of poor diets this was not an immediate concern. Price discounts and menu-labelling were suggested and trust in credible organizations and peers’ endorsement of meals and venues expressed. The role of smartphones in the modern food environment emerged as a tool to enable immediate access to many restaurants to order food and access reviews and social media as a source of persuasive food imagery. Current menu-labelling initiatives should continue, food pricing be explored and influence of smartphones on diet further researched. However, these findings may be limited by the high proportion of women and higher socioeconomic status and urban residence of many participants.
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spelling pubmed-67697042019-10-30 The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds Allman-Farinelli, Margaret Rahman, Hassan Nour, Monica Wellard-Cole, Lyndal Watson, Wendy L. Nutrients Article Young adults are the highest consumers of food prepared outside home, which has been linked to weight gain. The aim of this qualitative research was to gather opinions from young adults about what influences their food choice when eating out and if they so desired, what might enable healthy choices. Thirty-one adults aged 18 to 30 years participated in four focus groups (females = 24). Predetermined questions were used to guide discussions which were audiotaped then transcribed. The content was organized into themes and sub-themes using NVivo software. Two broad groupings arose—personal behaviors and changes to physical and social food environments. For many, eating out was viewed as a special occasion so that healthy food was not a priority and despite understanding health consequences of poor diets this was not an immediate concern. Price discounts and menu-labelling were suggested and trust in credible organizations and peers’ endorsement of meals and venues expressed. The role of smartphones in the modern food environment emerged as a tool to enable immediate access to many restaurants to order food and access reviews and social media as a source of persuasive food imagery. Current menu-labelling initiatives should continue, food pricing be explored and influence of smartphones on diet further researched. However, these findings may be limited by the high proportion of women and higher socioeconomic status and urban residence of many participants. MDPI 2019-09-13 /pmc/articles/PMC6769704/ /pubmed/31540273 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11092217 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Allman-Farinelli, Margaret
Rahman, Hassan
Nour, Monica
Wellard-Cole, Lyndal
Watson, Wendy L.
The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds
title The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds
title_full The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds
title_fullStr The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds
title_short The Role of Supportive Food Environments to Enable Healthier Choices When Eating Meals Prepared Outside the Home: Findings from Focus Groups of 18 to 30-Year-Olds
title_sort role of supportive food environments to enable healthier choices when eating meals prepared outside the home: findings from focus groups of 18 to 30-year-olds
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6769704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31540273
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11092217
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