Abstract
The transition from childhood to adolescence is a sensitive period, triggering changes in health- and weight-related behaviours including eating habits which likely vary between girls and boys. We aimed to characterise the changes in the frequency of consumption of select sugary foods and drinks ('sweet treats') among 4237 Finnish girls and boys during a 2-year follow-up period. Additionally, we examined four subgroups: children whose weight or waist normalised as well as children whose weight or waist circumference increased during follow-up. An FFQ was completed at 11·1 (sd 0·9) and again at 13·4 (sd 1·1) years of age. A sum variable sweet treat index (STI, range 0-84) captured the weekly consumption frequencies of sweet treats. From baseline to follow-up, the mean STI decreased among girls from 7·1 (95 % CI 6·9, 7·3) to 6·0 (95 % CI 5·9, 6·2) (P < 0·001) and boys from 8·5 (95 % CI 8·3, 8·8) to 7·8 (95 % CI 7·6, 7·8) (P < 0·001), although both sexes increased their chocolate/sweets consumption: girls from 1·3 (95 % CI 1·3, 1·4) to 1·6 (95 % CI 1·5, 1·6) (P < 0·001) and boys from 1·4 (95 % CI 1·3, 1·4) to 1·6 (95 % CI 1·6, 1·7) (P < 0·001), and boys increased their soft drink consumption from 1·4 (95 % CI 1·3, 1·4) to 1·5 (95 % CI 1·4, 1·5) (P = 0·020). We found similar decreases in both the weight and waist subgroups. To conclude, the total frequency of consumption of sweet treats decreased during early adolescence. A similar trend across subgroups suggests that the frequency of consumption of sweet treats is unrelated to becoming overweight.
Highlights
Background informationWe obtained maternal occupation information at the time of child’s birth from the Medical Birth Register from the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)(34)
A decreasing sweet treat index (STI) suggests a positive development in the dietary behaviour of adolescents, which agrees with previous studies in which a decrease in the intake of added sugars has been shown during adolescence and as adolescents transition to adulthood[35,36]
South African girls and boys increased their consumption of chocolate and decreased their consumption of ice cream[37], unlike our findings decreased their consumption of sweets
Summary
We used the independent samples t test to examine the differences in continuous background characteristics comparing girls and boys. We used the paired samples t test to examine longitudinal changes in STI and the frequencies of consumption for all FFQ items separately among girls and boys. To determine if girls and boys changed their behaviours in different ways, we examined the interaction of sex and time using a two-way mixed analysis of covariance adjusting for age at baseline and follow-up time. Results are presented as crude means and standard deviations or CIs. we conducted a sensitivity analysis comparing the present sample with the rest of the cohort (comprising children who either did not participate in the follow-up or had missing values in age, sex, BMI or FFQ items; n 7170). We used IBM’s SPSS Statistics software program, version 25 (IBM Corp.) for all statistical analyses and set the level of statistical significance to P < 0·05
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