Prevalence and Patterns of Junk Food Consumption among Adolescents: A Baseline Cross-Sectional Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2026.v11.n02.007Keywords:
Junk food consumption, Adolescents, Dietary behaviour, Pocket money, Nutritional awareness, Sustainable dietAbstract
The stage of adolescence is a critical development period in which the food habits are formed, which has long-term consequences to health. The growing access to foods with high energy content, combined with changing lifestyle trends has contributed to an increased dependency of junk food among the adolescents. This cross-sectional baseline study aimed at investigating the prevalence and the determinants of junk food intake in adolescents studying in six private schools in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu in the larger project of promoting sustainable dietary habits. The sample was 1,181 adolescents aged between 10 and 17 years old, and the data were collected by using a semi-structured questionnaire that measured socio-demographic variables, the pattern of junk food consumption, the awareness of the impact on the health, and the peer influence. The anthropometric parameters were recorded and Body Mass Index (BMI) was determined based on the World Health Organization reference standards. Junk food intake was ranked by using a Junk Food Frequency Index (JFFI) and the data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, chi-square and binary logistic regression analysis. The results showed that 34.5 percent of the respondents had high rates of junk food consumption. High pocket money was found to be the strongest predictor of the frequent-eating of junk food, and the boys were more likely to report high consumption compared to girls. The level of nutritional awareness was negatively related to the likelihood of consuming high amounts of junk food. There were no notable independent relations with the parental employment status, peer influence, and BMI category. These findings provide support to the relevance of economic autonomy and knowledge of health in influencing the dieting preferences of adolescents and the need to implement school and family-based intervention strategies that simultaneously target both behavioural and environmental factors towards the fostering of long term and healthy dieting patterns.
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