Abstract
BackgroundOverweight and obesity in children and adolescents is a global epidemic posing problems for both developed and developing nations. The prevalence is particularly alarming in developed nations, such as the United States, where approximately one in three school-aged adolescents (ages 12-19) are overweight or obese. Evidence suggests that weight gain in school-aged adolescents is related to energy imbalance exacerbated by the negative aspects of the school food environment, such as presence of unhealthy food choices. While a well-established connection exists between the food environment, presently there is a lack of studies investigating the impact of the social environment and associated interactions of school-age adolescents. This paper uses a mathematical modelling approach to explore how social interactions among high school adolescents can affect their eating behaviour and food choice.MethodsIn this paper we use a Cellular Automata (CA) modelling approach to explore how social interactions among school-age adolescents can affect eating behaviour, and food choice. Our CA model integrates social influences and transition rules to simulate the way individuals would interact in a social community (e.g., school cafeteria). To replicate these social interactions, we chose the Moore neighbourhood which allows all neighbours (eights cells in a two-dimensional square lattice) to influence the central cell. Our assumption is that individuals belong to any of four states; Bring Healthy, Bring Unhealthy, Purchase Healthy, and Purchase Unhealthy, and will influence each other according to parameter settings and transition rules. Simulations were run to explore how the different states interact under varying parameter settings.ResultsThis study, through simulations, illustrates that students will change their eating behaviour from unhealthy to healthy as a result of positive social and environmental influences. In general, there is one common characteristic of changes across time; students with similar eating behaviours tend to form groups, represented by distinct clusters. Transition of healthy and unhealthy eating behaviour is non-linear and a sharp change is observed around a critical point where positive and negative influences are equal.ConclusionsConceptualizing the social environment of individuals is a crucial step to increasing our understanding of obesogenic environments of high-school students, and moreover, the general population. Incorporating both contextual, and individual determinants found in real datasets, in our model will greatly enhance calibration of future models. Complex mathematical modelling has a potential to contribute to the way public health data is collected and analyzed.
Highlights
Overweight and obesity in children and adolescents is a global epidemic posing problems for both developed and developing nations
While a well-established connection exists between both the food and physical activity environments and weight gain, presently there is a lack of studies investigating the impact of the social environment and associated interactions on school-age adolescents
We modeled four types of students who interact in a North American high school setting; (1) students bringing healthy food to school from home, (2) students bringing unhealthy food to school from home, (3) students purchasing healthy food from school vendors, and (4) students purchasing unhealthy food from school vendors
Summary
Overweight and obesity in children and adolescents is a global epidemic posing problems for both developed and developing nations. While a well-established connection exists between the food environment, presently there is a lack of studies investigating the impact of the social environment and associated interactions of school-age adolescents. Overweight and obesity in children and adolescents may increase both biological and mental health risks, such as hypertension, higher cholesterol [3], low self-esteem and behaviour problems [4] Addressing these risk factors are especially important as young adults face a more difficult time maintaining healthy weights [5] and physical activity levels [6]. While a well-established connection exists between both the food and physical activity environments and weight gain, presently there is a lack of studies investigating the impact of the social environment and associated interactions on school-age adolescents. Other studies have found overweight individuals to eat less when around normal-weight peers, while still consuming more around overweight peers whom they are twice as likely to be friend with [13,17,18]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
