Abstract
Many children skip breakfast, consume soft drinks/sweets and do not eat the recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables. Poor eating habits in children tend to be carried over into adulthood. The changes in eating behaviours of Czech 11-, 13- and 15-year-old children were examined by frequency of breakfast (on weekdays and weekends), fruit, vegetable, sweet and soft drink consumption using data obtained from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) surveys in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. Logistic regression was used to analyze changes in eating behaviours. The findings showed a significant increase (only in girls, p ≤ 0.001) in prevalence of breakfast consumption (on weekdays) and a decrease in daily consumption of soft drinks (in boys and girls, p ≤ 0.001), sweets (in boys and girls, p ≤ 0.01) and fruit (in boys, p ≤ 0.01; in girls, p ≤ 0.001) between 2002 and 2014. Daily vegetable and breakfast on weekends consumption remained statistically unchanged over time. More frequent daily fruit, vegetable and breakfast (on weekends) consumption was reported by girls and younger children, whereas daily soft drink intake was more prevalent in boys and older children. There is a need for re-evaluation of current policies and new initiatives to improve the eating habits of Czech children.
Highlights
An unhealthy diet is one of the major risk factors for chronic diseases [1,2,3] that are the leading causes of death globally [1]
From 2002 to 2014, the data showed an improvement in the percentages of daily consumers of sweets, soft drinks and breakfast during weekdays among Czech children and adolescents
The findings indicated a decline in daily intake of fruit and no significant change in daily vegetable consumption and breakfast eating on weekends
Summary
An unhealthy diet is one of the major risk factors for chronic diseases [1,2,3] that are the leading causes of death globally [1]. Recent evidence shows that even though the prevalence of non-communicable diseases is not very common among youth, there is early onset of risk behaviours in adolescents [4,5]. Healthy eating habits such as high fruit and vegetable intake, reduced soft drink consumption and eating breakfast regularly are the key elements to prevent chronic disease and promote health [6,7,8]. Public Health 2015, 12, 15888–15899; doi:10.3390/ijerph121215028 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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