Introduction

Abstract

Adolescents are generally thought to be healthy. However, adolescent risk behaviours such as substance use, a poor diet or early sexual activity are topics that keep generating high media interest. In addition, the past decades have witnessed a remarkable increase in the theoretical and empirical research being done on risk behaviour among young people. Despite considerable explanatory efforts, research on risk behaviour in adolescence is still facing two complementary challenges (Jessor 1998). Those are 1) understanding the processes that link risk behaviour to outcomes that compromise well-being, health and the life course (consequences of risk behaviour) and 2) understanding why an adolescent engages in risk behaviour in the first place and identifying the proximate and distal antecedents that influence engagement in risk behaviour (determinants of risk behaviour).