Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
Appetite. 2011 Dec;57(3):623-7. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2011.07.015. Epub 2011 Aug 5.
We hypothesized that adolescents misperceive social norms for food consumption, and aimed to test this, and examine associations between perceived norms and dietary behaviours. School pupils (n=264) in the UK, aged 16-19 years, completed a questionnaire about their own attitudes to, and intake of, fruits and vegetables, unhealthy snacks and sugar-sweetened drinks, and their perceptions of their peers' attitudes to (injunctive norms), and intake of (descriptive norms), the same foods. Misperceptions were calculated from differences between perceived norms and median self-reports of peer groups. Respondents overestimated their peers' intake of snacks by 1.8 portions a week, and sugar-sweetened drinks by 5.2 portions, and overestimated how positive their peers' attitudes were towards these behaviours. They underestimated their peers' consumption of fruits and vegetables by 3.2 portions per week and how positive their peers' attitudes were towards fruit and vegetables. Descriptive norms were strongly associated with intake of fruit and vegetables, sugar-sweetened drinks, and unhealthy snacks, explaining between 17% and 22% of the variance in consumption. There was no association between injunctive norms and intake. Descriptive norms indicated that misperceptions of peers' food intake were associated with respondents' own intake. Interventions to correct misperceptions have the potential to improve adolescents' diets.
我们假设青少年对食物消费的社会规范存在误解，并旨在对此进行测试，同时研究感知规范与饮食行为之间的关联。英国年龄在 16 至 19 岁的在校学生（n=264）完成了一份关于他们自己对水果和蔬菜、不健康零食和含糖饮料的态度以及对同龄人对这些食物的态度（规范性规范）和摄入量（描述性规范）的问卷。误解是通过感知规范与同龄人自我报告中位数之间的差异计算得出的。受访者每周高估了他们的同龄人对零食的摄入量 1.8 份，对含糖饮料的摄入量高估了 5.2 份，同时高估了同龄人对这些行为的积极态度。他们每周低估了同龄人对水果和蔬菜的摄入量 3.2 份，以及同龄人对水果和蔬菜的积极态度。描述性规范与水果和蔬菜、含糖饮料和不健康零食的摄入量密切相关，解释了摄入量变化的 17%至 22%。规范性规范与摄入量之间没有关联。描述性规范表明，对同龄人食物摄入量的误解与受访者自身的摄入量有关。纠正误解的干预措施有可能改善青少年的饮食。
