Adolescents' nutrition health issues: opinions of Finnish seventh‐graders

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to examine Finnish seventh‐graders' (13 to 14 years old) nutrition health attitudes, perceptions of skills, reported behaviour and perceptions of families' and friends' nutrition health‐related behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – The research data were collected in a baseline situation through a structured questionnaire presented to seventh‐graders (n=188) in four secondary schools, both rural and urban, in Eastern Finland. Two of the schools were experimental and two were control schools. All schools implemented nutrition health education according to the objectives of the national curriculum for basic education. Additionally, the experimental schools were developing their nutrition health education by using an ICT‐based learning environment.Findings – The results show that seventh‐grade girls had a greater probability to follow healthy eating habits compared to seventh‐grade boys. Parental support had an important role in seventh‐grade adolescents' healthy eat...

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