Children’s Food Environment

Abstract

Dietary behaviour is related to overweight and obesity, but also to several chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus type II. Some dietary behaviour may reduce the risk of obesity or chronic diseases (‘healthy’ dietary behaviour), while other dietary behaviour may increase the risk of developing obesity or chronic diseases (‘unhealthy’ dietary behaviour). Given the high and increasing prevalence rates of overweight and obesity in the last decades, the adverse health consequences and, given the fact that childhood obesity tracks into adulthood, prevention of overweight and obesity among children is an important public health issue. However, to improve the dietary behaviour of children more insight is needed into the determinants of dietary behaviour among children. This thesis investigate the influence of determinants of the home, school and neighbourhood environment. As obesity and poor dietary intake are more common among children from parents with a low educational background, this thesis also investigates whether environmental determinants can explain socio-economic inequalities in children’s dietary behaviour. The specific aims of this thesis are: - To investigate modifiable environmental determinants of dietary behaviour of primary school children aged 10-12 years. - To investigate socio-economic inequalities in dietary behaviour of primary school children aged 10-12 years. - To investigate whether modifiable environmental factors can explain socio-economic inequalities among primary school children aged 10-12 years.

Results from the first part of this thesis show that factors related to the home food environment are associated with the dietary behaviour of 10-12 year old primary school children’s and are, therefore, important targets for health interventions. Regarding the school food environment, it was concluded that the school food policy can be an important tool to foster healthy dietary behaviour among children. The second part of this thesis shows that children from a lower socio-economic background have the least favourable dietary behaviour. In addition, the results that home environmental factors can explain socio-economic inequalities in children’s dietary behaviour.