TY - JOUR
T1 - Country-level sociocultural context and socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent dietary behaviours
T2 - A multilevel analysis in 21 European countries
AU - Dierckens, Maxim
AU - Deforche, Benedicte
AU - De Clercq, Bart
AU - Weinberg, Dominic
AU - Stevens, Gonneke W.J.M.
AU - Chatelan, Angeline
AU - Rouche, Manon
AU - Clays, Els
AU - Delaruelle, Katrijn
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2024/7/1
Y1 - 2024/7/1
N2 - Studies to date have predominantly focused on countries' socioeconomic conditions (e.g., income inequality) to explain cross-national differences in socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health (behaviours). However, the potential explanatory role of sociocultural contexts at country-level remains underexamined. This study examined whether the country-level sociocultural context and changes thereof were associated with adolescent socioeconomic inequalities in dietary behaviours. International comparative data of 344,352 adolescents living in 21 countries participating in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 waves of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey were combined with aggregated levels of openness-to-change from the European Social Survey (ESS). Four dietary behaviours (i.e., fruit, vegetable, sweets and soft drink consumption) and two measures of socioeconomic status (SES) on the individual level (i.e., family affluence scale [FAS] and occupational social class [OSC]) were studied. Multilevel logistic regression analyses returned contrasting results for the two SES measures used. In countries with higher levels of openness-to-change, smaller FAS inequalities in daily fruit, sweets and soft drink consumption were observed, but no such inequalities were found for vegetable consumption. Conversely, in these countries, larger OSC inequalities in soft drink consumption were found. Country-specific changes in openness-to-change over time were not associated with the magnitude of adolescent dietary inequalities. Findings underscore the importance of including country-level sociocultural contexts to improve the understanding of cross-national differences in socioeconomic inequalities in adolescents’ diets. Future studies, spanning a longer timeframe, are required to examine whether such associations exist within countries over time since our timeframe might have been too small to capture these long-term trends.
AB - Studies to date have predominantly focused on countries' socioeconomic conditions (e.g., income inequality) to explain cross-national differences in socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health (behaviours). However, the potential explanatory role of sociocultural contexts at country-level remains underexamined. This study examined whether the country-level sociocultural context and changes thereof were associated with adolescent socioeconomic inequalities in dietary behaviours. International comparative data of 344,352 adolescents living in 21 countries participating in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 waves of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey were combined with aggregated levels of openness-to-change from the European Social Survey (ESS). Four dietary behaviours (i.e., fruit, vegetable, sweets and soft drink consumption) and two measures of socioeconomic status (SES) on the individual level (i.e., family affluence scale [FAS] and occupational social class [OSC]) were studied. Multilevel logistic regression analyses returned contrasting results for the two SES measures used. In countries with higher levels of openness-to-change, smaller FAS inequalities in daily fruit, sweets and soft drink consumption were observed, but no such inequalities were found for vegetable consumption. Conversely, in these countries, larger OSC inequalities in soft drink consumption were found. Country-specific changes in openness-to-change over time were not associated with the magnitude of adolescent dietary inequalities. Findings underscore the importance of including country-level sociocultural contexts to improve the understanding of cross-national differences in socioeconomic inequalities in adolescents’ diets. Future studies, spanning a longer timeframe, are required to examine whether such associations exist within countries over time since our timeframe might have been too small to capture these long-term trends.
KW - Eating behaviour
KW - Health inequalities
KW - Multilevel regression analysis
KW - Socioeconomic status
KW - Youth
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85190160011&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107339
DO - 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107339
M3 - Article
C2 - 38604381
SN - 0195-6663
VL - 198
JO - Appetite
JF - Appetite
M1 - 107339
ER -