Nutrition behaviour

The most frequent nutritive disorders are obesity and abnormal weight loss within teenagers and the numbers of these children are increasing. Globally obesity is getting more frequent. In 2007/08 in the USA almost 13% of 12-19 year old children struggle with weight gain. In Hungary this ratio was 15% according to HBSC survey (Ogden at al 2010, Németh, 2011). Feeling discomfort about their body image is mainly due to commercials and media indicating that girls should be thin and boys are expected to be brawny which encourages teenagers to use body controls. According to a survey carried out in the USA in 2007 60% of teenage girls and 30% of boys tried out some sort of diet (Eaton et al, 2008). The outcomes of HBSC in 2010 it became evident that at the time of the survey 20% of the Hungarian teenagers applied some dieting methods and techniques to be able to loose weight (Németh, 2011).

            As this problem urges solutions the focus of research is to deal with teenagers’ nutrition. The European data show that teenagers eat only half portions of the suggested vegetables and fruit. They eat fewer diary products but they consume more and more meat, fat and sweets (Diethelm at al, and HELENA Study Group, 2012).

Nutrition risks typical in this age group

• Numbers of fast food restaurants are growing
• Drinking sweetened soft drinks
• Noshery
• Not having breakfast
• Eating fewer whole some meals, vegetables and fruit

Besides the families’ social and economic status teenagers’ diet is also considerably affected by their friends’ and partners’ opinions and weather they are satisfied with their body. Naturally free time activities also have some impact on their diet. It has been proved that teenagers who do exercises in their free time develop better dieting behaviour than children who neglect doing any activities. The research of Ottevaere and at al (2011) shows that both girls and boys who do quality activities eat more fruit and diary products. The diet of the boys who do intensive activities contains lots of vegetables, meat, egg and fish. Girls eat less bread. It has also become clear that both girls and boys who spend lots of time in front of their computer tend to eat more sweets and chips etc. (Santaliestra-Paslas et al, 2013).