Abstract
BackgroundEarly adulthood is a period of rapid personal development when individuals experience major life transitions (e.g. leaving the parental home, leaving education, beginning employment, cohabitation and parenthood). Changes in social and physical environments associated with these transitions may influence development of health-related behaviours. Consumption of fast food is one behaviour associated with poor diet and long-term health outcomes. In this study we assess how frequency of fast food consumption changes across early adulthood, and how major life transitions are associated with changes in fast food intake.MethodsData were collected across four waves of the Project EAT study, from mean age 14.9 (SD = 1.6) to mean age 31.1 (SD = 1.6) years. Participants reporting data at two or more waves were included (n = 2902). Participants reported past week frequency of eating food from a fast food restaurant and responded to questions on living arrangements, education and employment participation, and having children. To assess changes in fast food we developed a latent growth model incorporating an underlying trajectory of fast food intake, five life transitions, and time-invariant covariates.ResultsMean fast food intake followed an underlying quadratic trajectory, increasing through adolescence to a maximum of 1.88 (SE 0.94) times/week and then decreasing again through early adulthood to 0.76 (SE 2.06) times/week at wave 4. Beginning full-time employment and becoming a parent both contributed to increases in fast food intake, each resulting in an average increase in weekly fast food intake of 0.16 (p < 0.01) times/week. Analysis of changes between pairs of waves revealed stronger associations for these two transitions between waves 1–2 (mean age 14.9–19.4 years) than seen in later waves. Leaving the parental home and beginning cohabitation were associated with decreases in fast food intake of − 0.17 (p = 0.004) and − 0.16 (p = 0.007) times/week respectively, while leaving full-time education was not associated with any change.ConclusionsThe transitions of beginning full-time employment and becoming a parent were associated with increases in fast food intake. Public health policy or interventions designed to reduce fast food intake in young adults may benefit from particular focus on populations experiencing these transitions, to ameliorate their impact.
Highlights
Adulthood is a period of rapid personal development when individuals experience major life transitions
Frequent fast food consumption is associated with lower overall diet quality [2, 11], and longitudinal research has shown that higher frequency of fast food consumption in young adulthood is prospectively associated with increases in body weight and insulin resistance over the following 15 years [12]
Baseline descriptive data for the included sample are shown in Prevalence and timing of life transitions in the study population Each of the five transitions were common within our population (Table 2), ranging from 87.1% of individuals leaving full-time education to 43.2% becoming a parent across all the waves of data available
Summary
Adulthood is a period of rapid personal development when individuals experience major life transitions (e.g. leaving the parental home, leaving education, beginning employment, cohabitation and parenthood). Changes in social and physical environments associated with these transitions may influence development of health-related behaviours. In this study we assess how frequency of fast food consumption changes across early adulthood, and how major life transitions are associated with changes in fast food intake. In the U.S, the highest consumption of fast food is reported by young adults (aged 20–39); 45% of this population subgroup reports consuming fast food on any given day [9]. Frequent fast food consumption is associated with lower overall diet quality [2, 11], and longitudinal research has shown that higher frequency of fast food consumption in young adulthood is prospectively associated with increases in body weight and insulin resistance over the following 15 years [12]
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