Twenty-Four-Year Trends in Family and Regional Disparities in Fruit, Vegetable and Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption among Adolescents in Belgium

Manon Rouche, Maxim Dierckens, Lucille Desbouys, Camille Pedroni, Thérésa Lebacq, Isabelle Godin, Benedicte Deforche and Katia Castetbon
Additional contact information
Manon Rouche: Research Centre in “Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research”, School of Public Health, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Maxim Dierckens: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University (UGent), 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Lucille Desbouys: Research Centre in “Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research”, School of Public Health, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Camille Pedroni: Research Centre in “Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research”, School of Public Health, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Thérésa Lebacq: Research Centre in “Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research”, School of Public Health, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Isabelle Godin: Research Centre in “Social Approaches to Health”, School of Public Health, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Benedicte Deforche: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University (UGent), 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Katia Castetbon: Research Centre in “Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research”, School of Public Health, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Dietary habits are influenced by various determinants that may evolve over time. This study aimed to examine, among adolescents in Belgium, trends in the dietary habits between 1990 and 2014 and to determine changes in family and regional disparities related to diet during this time period. In the 1990, 2002 and 2014 cross-sectional “Health Behaviour in School-aged Children” (HBSC) surveys, food consumption was estimated using a short Food Frequency Questionnaire. The Relative Index of Inequality (RII) enabled quantification of the gradients of inequality related to the family structure and to the region for non-daily fruit and vegetable and daily sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption. Between 1990 and 2014, the prevalence of non-daily fruit consumption increased from 27.7% to 60.6%, whereas the daily SSB consumption decreased from 58.9% to 34.8%. Over time, a downward trend in family disparities ( p = 0.007) was observed for daily fruit consumption (RII: 1.58 (1.33–1.88) to 1.18 (1.13–1.23)). An upward trend in region-related disparities (p < 0.001) for SSB was found (RII: 1.15 (1.07–1.23) to 1.37 (1.28–1.47)). The overall trend of increasing disparities when dietary habits improved and decreasing disparities when dietary habits worsened highlights the need to implement actions that improve overall dietary habits while ensuring that disparities do not increase.

Keywords: dietary habits; social disparities; trends; adolescents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4408/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4408/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4408-:d:540359

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().