Nutrition among Adolescent Spaniards: Healthy and Non-healthy Motives of Food Choice

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The average age of the sample was slightly over 15 years, for both female and male subjects. With respect to the anthropometric variables, there were no significant differences for weight between the public and private centres, but there were differences when comparing female and male weight. The average global height in public schools was significantly higher than that of private centres. In terms of the variable gender, male subjects were much taller than the female ones.

2.3. Data Analysis

In order to confirm the FCQ's applicability to the sample of young people polled, and examine the possible differences related to the socio-demographic and anthropometric variables (weight), a two phase methodology was used. All the analyses were carried out with the program SPSS (version 19), applying a confidence level of at least 0.05 in all the tests realized.

Firstly, the 23 items used in the FCQ were submitted to a Principal Component Factor Analysis (PCFA); previously, compliance with the conditions of applicability of this analysis was checked. Therefore, the majority of the coefficients of the matrix correlation were above 0.3; The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.843 (greater than the minimum recommended level of 0.6); and the Bartlett test of sphericity was significant (p<0.05). In addition, to ensure the internal consistency of the resulting factors, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated for each of them, all the coefficients were greater than 0.6, which ensures the internal consistency of all of the resulting factors ^[19].

Secondly, different analyses of the mean differences (ANOVA, t-test, Pearson Chi-Square) were carried out in order to analyse the existence, or not, of differences in relation to the motives for food choice. All of these based on the weight of the respondents and on the socio-demographic variables considered.

3. Results and Discussions

3.1. Motives for the Food Choice

As mentioned previously, firstly, a PCFA was applied to the 23 items of the FCQ in order to group the motives that the subjects have polled have for choosing food. As a result of this process, six factors were obtained (Table 2) which together explains 60.23 of the variance.

Table 2. Principal motives for the choice of food by young people

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The first factor, “Natural and healthy” comprised 7 items which combine the factors “Health” and “Natural content” on the original scale , this combination is similar to that obtained in previous studies ^[13]. This combination could be due to the fact that young people associate natural with something healthy and wholesome, both concepts being similar in relation to the food choice.

The second factor, “Price”, includes 3 items relative to the economic value of the food and coincides with the original factor in the FCQ. The third factor, “Sensory appearance” comprised 4 items related to the principal senses related to taste, and smell, also agreed with the original scale. The fourth factor, as in the FCQ, refers to 3 items related to “Weight control”, which is one of the generally most important aspects in the choice of food consumed. The fifth factor, “Ethical concern”, is related to aspects about the surroundings and origin of the chosen food, and is formed by the same 3 items as in the reference scale.

Finally, the sixth factor, called “Familiarity”, comprised 3 items about the respondent's personal surroundings, as in the FCQ. An important and practical conclusion of previous results is the applicability of the scale FCQ to young people.

Table 3 shows the results of the analysis of correlations between the factors. It was shown that all of the coefficients are significant, therefore, there are no problems of multicollinearity between the data, and each factor can be considered to be different to the rest of the factors.

Table 3. Matrix of correlations between factors

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In order to discern the importance that each factor has in the choice of food, the average evaluation for each of the six identified factors was calculated (mean and standard deviations). As it was shown (Table 3), the most important factor for young people, when it comes to choosing food, is related to its sensory aspects (fcq3). What they like or do not like is a fundamental element in their choice of habitual consumption. Although with an adult sample, a similar result was obtained in a study ^[9] carried out in different European countries to check the applicability of the FCQ in different contexts.

The least valued aspect was the factor “Ethical concern” (fcq5) which hardly scores 2.5 (out of 5), therefore, young people do not seem very concerned about the origin or production method of the food they are going to consume. This result is also similar to the obtained by ^[20]. Thus, the previous knowledge of the food (Familiarity (fcq6)), is not very important in the choice of a food, perhaps because young people's desire is to taste new things, including new food. The same result was also obtained in studies with adult samples ^[9].

At an intermediate level, with a score between 3 and 3.5 (out of 5), are found the rest of the factors. On the one hand, the aspects relative to health and the natural nature of the food (fcq1) and the price (fcq2). They obtained very similar results, which showed that young people are beginning to be aware of the importance of taking care of their health with adequate nutrition and, also, they are concerned about the economic issues in their immediate surroundings. “Weight control” (fcq4) is valued slightly above 3 points on average, in fourth place; therefore, young people value sensory aspects more than the effect of food on their weight, in spite of the fact that this aspect is also important.

3.2. Effects of the Food Choice on Overweight

In order to examine the relationship between weight and the food choice by young people, the BMI was calculated to classify the respondents into three groups. The first group was composed by teens with a BMI <18.5 the group named “underweight”. The second group (desirable) was formed by those who had a BMI >18.5 and <25. The third group was composed by those who were overweight or obese, BMI > 25 ^{[21, 22, 23]}.

In order to contrast if the results could confirm a relationship between the motives for food choice and the respondents' weight, an ANOVA test was conducted^[24]. The results, shown in Figure 1, didn’t confirm this relationship, because no factor presents statistically significant differences between the groups.

Nevertheless, an interesting conclusion from this analysis was obtained. The factor “Weight control” (fcq4) was valued equally by adolescents with overweight and adolescents with desirable BMI, but it was not so valued by adolescents with underweight.

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Figure 1. Food choice and weight categories

3.3. Socio-demographic Variables and Food Choice
3.3.1. Type of School: Public or Private

In the process of choosing and consuming food, one of most important variables is the socio-economic level ^[25]. This variable was analysed basing on the type of school (public or private). The research has shown that there were significant differences, regarding the distribution of the degree of BMI (Table 4), in adolescents Spaniard regarding the type of school they have attended (public or private school). Hence, and following ^[3], the results stated that in public centre (lower socio-economic level) there was a greater percentage of young with weight problems, both underweight and overweight.

Table 4. BMI by type of school (data in %)

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Moreover, there were important differences between the motives for choosing food between pupils in public and private schools (Figure 2), as they only valued the natural and healthy nature of their usual food in a similar way (fcq1). The pupils in public schools valued the sensory aspect of the food which they consume (fcq4) but they did not value the ethical issues related to it (fcq4) and the familiarity with the products they usually consume (fcq6). Regarding the effect that, the food they have eaten, had on their weight (fcq4), they considered it was important but it did not seem to obsess them. Nevertheless, it is important to note that students from public school were less concerned about the price of food (fcq2) than students from private schools.

On the other hand, private school pupils have valued the sensory aspects of food highly (fcq3) and the price (fcq2), but they had little concern for the ethical aspects (fcq5); besides, the effect that food had on their weight have been concerned to a reasonable degree (fcq4) and they liked to consume products which were familiar to them (fcq6).

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Figure 2. Food choice by type of school

3.3.2. Variable of Gender

Another of the socio-demographic variables which is commonly used in the analysis of eating habits is the respondent's gender^{[15, 16, 26]}. As Table 5 shows, and although the differences are not significant, the percentage of young men with overweight is higher than in women

Table 5. BMI by gender (data in %)

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As Figure 3 shows, the female subjects have given more importance to all of the factors related to the food they have consumed than the male subjects, except in the case of the familiarity of the food; this result was in line with the above-cited studies.

As seen on the basis of the results obtained previously, the most important aspect was the sensory one (fcq3) and the least, the ethical one (fcq5). The most important difference between the groups was the importance given to the possible effect of food on weight (fcq4), quite important for the female subjects and at an average level for the male ones; the girls also valued the healthy aspects of their nutrition more than males (fcq1). Price (fcq2) was relatively important for both groups, but there were no significant differences between males and females.

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Figure 3. Food choice by gender

3.4. Global Results

In relation to the importance which teens give to the different factors in their decision about what to eat, we can establish a ranking (Table 6).

In the global results of the sample analysed, as in the majority of studies in different contexts, the aspects related to the senses were the most important elements in the choice of food and, the least important, were the aspects related to the ethical characteristics of the producers of such food. Other aspects worth highlighting are that the effect on health of the food usually consumed is important, but the familiarity aspect is not important for young people. Furthermore, these results are verified in practically all the socio-demographic groups studied.

Table 6. Ranking of factors for choosing food

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