Navigating the obesogenic environment: How psychological sensitivity to the food environment and self-regulatory competence are associated with adolescent unhealthy snacking

doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.12.003

Eating Behaviors

Volume 17, April 2015, Pages 19-22

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.12.003 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Adolescents reporting higher psychological sensitivity to the food environment consumed more unhealthy snacks.
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Adolescents with better self-regulatory competence consumed fewer unhealthy snacks.
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Self-regulatory competence slightly attenuated the association between food environment sensitivity and unhealthy snacking.
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Self-regulatory competence may help adolescents navigate the obesogenic environment.

Abstract

Purpose

Living in an obesogenic environment may not affect all adolescents to the same extent, depending on their psychological sensitivity to the food environment and their self-regulatory competence. The purpose of the current study was to examine associations of these two factors with unhealthy snacking among adolescents. We also investigated whether self-regulatory competence could attenuate the negative effects of being sensitive to the food environment.

Methods

A survey was completed by 11,392 European adolescents (10–17 years old). The survey measured psychological sensitivity to the food environment, self-regulatory competence and self-reported unhealthy snack intake.

Results

Higher food environment sensitivity and lower self-regulatory competence were associated with more unhealthy snacking. The two factors also interacted, with self-regulatory competence attenuating the influence of high food environment sensitivity.

Discussion

Adolescents who are sensitive to the food environment reported higher unhealthy snack intake. More frequent use of self-regulation strategies on the other hand was associated with lower unhealthy snack intake. Moreover, self-regulatory competence was found to moderate the influence of psychological sensitivity to the food environment on unhealthy snacking, although the effect size was small. Fostering adolescents' self-regulatory competence can help enable them to better navigate the obesogenic environment.

Introduction

About one-third of European school-aged children are now overweight (Wang & Lobstein, 2006). A large body of evidence shows that the omnipresence and easy accessibility of palatable energy-dense foods, often referred to as the obesogenic environment (Swinburn, Egger, & Raza, 1999), contributes substantially to this trend (Booth, Pinkston, & Carlos Poston, 2005). Living in the obesogenic environment is especially challenging for adolescents, who are just beginning to learn to handle increased autonomy regarding eating choices (Basset et al., 2008, Stok et al., 2010). Additionally, their reward sensitivity is heightened whereas inhibitory control is not yet fully developed (Steinberg, 2007). However, the effects of the obesogenic environment on individuals are not universal, with a proportion of the population remaining slim despite environmental pressures (Lowe and Butryn, 2009, Wardle and Boniface, 2008). The current study investigates if differences in the extent to which adolescents are sensitive to the obesogenic environment can explain differences in unhealthy snacking, and if self-regulatory competence can attenuate the negative effects of being sensitive to the obesogenic environment on unhealthy snacking.

Studies with adults have shown that individuals differ in their psychological sensitivity to the food environment (Cappelleri et al., 2009, Lowe et al., 2009), and that these individual differences are associated with eating-related outcomes. Obese participants reported higher sensitivity than non-obese participants (Lowe et al., 2009), and sensitivity was shown to predict frequency and intensity of chocolate craving and to negatively predict success in abstaining from eating chocolate (Levitsky & Shen, 2008). The obesogenic environment thus affects some individuals more than others, raising the question of whether adolescents who experience high psychological sensitivity to the food environment would inevitably overeat as long as they are in an obesogenic environment. We believe that this may not necessarily be the case and that there may be factors, such as self-regulatory competence, that can buffer the negative effects of the food environment on eating behavior.

Self-regulatory competence is the ability to resist an immediate temptation in the service of attaining a long-term desired goal (Baumeister and Vohs, 2004, Metcalfe and Mischel, 1999). Adolescents have been shown to know various self-regulation strategies in the food domain (Stok, De Vet, De Ridder, et al., 2012), and higher use of these strategies has been shown to be associated with healthier eating behaviors (De Vet, De Ridder, Stok, et al., 2014). Self-regulatory competence thus has a direct correlation with healthier intake. We propose that self-regulatory competence may have another benefit, namely, that it may also serve as a moderator of the negative impact of being sensitive to the food environment on eating behavior.

In the current study, data were used from an international survey conducted within the scope of the TEMPEST project, in which self-regulation of eating in adolescents in nine European countries was investigated. Unhealthy snacking was chosen as outcome variable because adolescents have more autonomy and choice over the snacks they eat than over main meals (Stok et al., 2010) and because snacking is an important contributor to overweight (Duffey and Popkin, 2011, Zizza et al., 2001). Our hypotheses were that higher psychological sensitivity to the food environment would be associated with more unhealthy snacking, that higher self-regulatory competence would be associated with less unhealthy snacking, and that self-regulatory competence would attenuate the impact of food environment sensitivity on unhealthy snacking

Section snippets

Participants and procedures

A total of 11,392 adolescents aged 10–17 years took part in the survey. Participants' mean age was 13.2 years (SD = 2.0) and 50.5% were girls. Data were collected in 121 schools in nine European countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Romania, and Portugal), selected to represent various geographic locations, socio-economic backgrounds, and overweight prevalences. Moreover, within each country, care was taken to select schools from both urban (58.5%) and rural

Sample description

Most participants (74.8%) had a normal weight, while 10.5% was underweight, 12.5% was overweight and 2.1% was obese. Most participants spoke the country's national language with their parents (90.7%). Of the participants, 13.0% came from low affluent families, while 39.3% and 47.8% came from middle and high affluent families, respectively. On average, participants used the self-regulatory strategies sometimes to regularly (M = 2.39, SD = 0.80), and they reported moderate psychological sensitivity

Discussion

In today's society, unhealthy food is everywhere. It has recently been suggested that some individuals may be more psychologically sensitive to this obesogenic environment than others (Lowe and Butryn, 2009, Wardle and Boniface, 2008). The current study investigated the association of food environment sensitivity with unhealthy snack intake in adolescents and provided a first indication that adolescents who are more sensitive to the food environment may consume more unhealthy snacks.

Role of funding sources

Funding for this study was provided by the European Commission FP7 Research Program (Health-F2-2008-223488). The European Commission had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Contributors

MS, EdV, JdW, and DdR designed the study and wrote the protocol. MS conducted the statistical analyses and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Michael Lowe for his valuable contribution to an earlier version of this manuscript. The authors acknowledge all members of the TEMPEST consortium.

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Navigating the obesogenic environment: How psychological sensitivity to the food environment and self-regulatory competence are associated with adolescent unhealthy snacking

Highlights

Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results

Discussion

Introduction

Section snippets

Participants and procedures

Sample description

Discussion

Role of funding sources

Contributors

Conflict of interest

Acknowledgments

Journal of the American Dietetic Association

Social Science & Medicine

Appetite

Appetite

Appetite

Journal of Adolescence

Preventive Medicine

Preventive Medicine

Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions

Autonomy and control: The co-construction of adolescent food choice

Appetite

Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications

Immigrant youth: Acculturation, identity, and adaptation

Applied Psychology

Evaluating the Power of Food Scale in obese subjects and a general sample of individuals: Development and measurement properties

International Journal of Obesity