Enabling Better Nutrition and Physical Activity for Adolescents from Middle Eastern Backgrounds: Focus Groups.

Nematullah Hayba,Claudia Khalil,Margaret Allman-Farinelli

doi:10.3390/nu13093007

Abstract

The obesity epidemic in adolescents from Middle Eastern (ME) backgrounds necessitates co-designed and culturally-responsive interventions. This study’s objective was to gather the opinions, attitudes, capabilities, opportunities and motivations of ME adolescents residing in Australia on healthy eating and physical activity (PA) behaviours to inform a future prevention program. Five focus groups were conducted, with 32 ME participants, aged 13–18 years, recruited via purposive and snowball sampling. More participants were female (n = 19) and from lower socioeconomic areas (n = 25). A reflexive thematic analysis was performed using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour (COM-B) model as the coding framework. Limited nutritional knowledge and cooking skills accompanied by a desire to make dietary changes were reported. Local and school facilities provided adolescents with PA opportunities, but participants declared safety concerns and limited opportunities for females and older grade students. Social support from family and friends were enablers for both healthy eating and PA. Cravings and desire for cultural foods influenced food choices. Individual and/or group approaches using social media and face-to-face format were recommended for future programs. To enable PA and dietary behaviour changes, interventions should be specifically tailored for ME adolescents to improve their nutrition literacy and skills, along with providing safe environments for sport in conjunction with social support.

Highlights

Five focus group sessions were conducted over an eightweek period. It was observed in the first focus group that the males dominated the discussion, so a decision was made to conduct same-sex groups to see if any different themes emerged
Findings suggest that healthy eating and physical activity (PA) behaviours of Middle Eastern (ME) adolescents are influenced by nutritional knowledge and cooking skills, social and environmental influences especially from parents and friends that encourage healthy versus unhealthy eating and participation in sport, as well as emotional responses, desires, habits, and beliefs
Participants in this study suggested that the availability of nutritious foods at home facilitate healthy eating behaviours, despite their desire for unhealthy food consumption

Summary

Introduction

Overweight and obesity are major global public health concerns with rates continuing to rise among children and adolescents aged 5–19 years from 4% in 1975 to 18% in 2016 [1]. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was significantly higher among adolescents from Middle Eastern (ME) cultural backgrounds (41.1%) compared to those from English-speaking backgrounds (26.1%) [2]. This is of particular concern in ME boys of which 45.2% were overweight or obese compared to 35.9% of ME girls.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion