Healthy Snack Food Research Articles

Sensing the Snacking Experience: Bodily Sensations Linked to the Consumption of Healthy and Unhealthy Snack Foods—A Comparison between Body Mass Index Levels

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has highlighted the need for immediate action regarding the escalating global prevalence of overweight and obesity. Based on the need for long-term strategies supporting dietary behaviour changes, the concept of ‘interoception’ (i.e., sensing the body’s internal state) has been proposed as promising for understanding and controlling food intake behaviours. As eating behaviours are motivated by the need for securing energy demands as well as the desire for pleasure, investigating the bodily sensations perceived in relation to food consumption can support our understanding of human food and eating behaviours. Here, a consumer study was conducted on 286 Danish consumers to explore the interoceptive experience of snack food consumption. This study included an investigation of the consumers’ interoceptive capabilities and ability to feel pleasure, intuitive eating behaviours, snack food consumption frequency, the drivers of snack food consumption, food-related pleasure, and post-ingestive sensations linked to snack food consumption. The study was conducted on consumers with different Body Mass Index (BMI) levels to study potential differences between these groups. The study showed normal interoceptive capabilities and abilities to feel pleasure, with no differences between BMI groups. Regarding intuitive eating, the study found intuitive eating to be more prevalent among the group holding normal BMI. No significant differences between BMI groups were found in terms of snack intake frequency. However, differences between BMI groups were found in terms of: the drivers of snack consumption, the aspects bringing food-related pleasure from snack consumption, and the post-ingestive sensations felt after eating snack foods.

Healthy snack food campaign through educational games for elementary school student

Elementary school students like various snacks in the school environment, which frees children to choose the food and drinks available. They tend to consume foods containing causative spices, sweet foods, and beverages, and foods with additional ingredients, which will cause things that are not good for children's health. There are still many students who need help understanding about healthy snacks food. Education on healthy snacks in schools is not optimal because knowledge related to these snacks food still needs to be better socialized. This community service activity aims to increase knowledge about healthy snacks in elementary school students through educational games. The methods are socialization, focus group discussion, game simulation through snake and ladder educational games, healthy snack food puzzles, self-evaluation, and documentation. The results obtained from this activity were in the form of increasing the knowledge score of healthy snack food after education and educational games and commitment from partners to incorporate healthy snack food materials into PJOK subjects. This result shows that knowledge of healthy snacks can be improved through snake and ladder educational game activities and beneficial snack food puzzle games. It is recommended that the school continuously allocate time regularly for healthy snack food education for all students.

Evaluation of drying kinetics and quality parameters of rosehip pestils dried by three different methods

BACKGROUND: Rosehip fruits cannot be eaten as entire fruits in their fresh feature so they processed into various products including pestils. OBJECTIVE: In the current work, rosehip pestil as a new healthy snack food was developed by using hot air (HA) drying at 55, 65 and 75°C, vacuum (VC) drying at 55, 65 and 75°C with 25 kPa and microwave (MCW) drying at 90 and 180 W. METHODS: The effect of three different drying methods on drying kinetics and quality parameters i.e., total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant capacity (AC), Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) formation, lycopene, β-carotene content, element composition, color, texture and sensorial properties of rosehip pestils was studied. RESULTS: Wang and Singh model was best fitted for MCW drying at 90 W, however Page and Modified Page models were best fitted for other drying conditions. The rosehip pestils dried by MCW drying method had highest drying rate, TPC, AC, lycopene and β-carotene content, element concentration, color values, whereas their HMF content and sensorial properties were not acceptable. Sensory evaluation results indicated that rosehip pestils dried with HA was rated the most acceptable. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that rosehip pestil with its sensorial and nutritive properties could be an alternative product for the functional food market. However, it has been seen that the drying methods used alone have some disadvantages. For this reason, it may be possible to eliminate these disadvantages if hybrid drying methods (for example MCW drying followed by HA or VC drying) are preferred in future studies.

Removing English Walnut (Juglans Regia) Ready-to-Use Shelled Walnuts Consumption Barriers

Because of the vast information on health benefits and the urbanization impact changes in eating habits, the demand for ready-to-use shelled walnuts as a convenient, healthy, and nutritious snack food is increasing all over the world. However, shelled nuts sold as halves or pieces in ‘ready-to-use’ small packages are more susceptible to pellicle darkening and rancidity than their in-shell equivalents. Currently, about two-thirds of the USA crop is exported, and ~66% of these exports are sold as shelled ‘ready to use’, and its demand is increasing. Yet, this package style is generating quality challenges due to the darkening and rancidification of the kernel pellicle. Protection against kernel color quality loss and rancidity during postharvest handling, even at warm temperatures, can be accomplished at 6 kPa (%) oxygen or less for ‘Chandler’ and 3 kPa or less for ‘Howard’ and ‘Tulare’. The application of the ‘cold chain’ principle and/or low oxygen technology is unpractical for large cropping systems. Thus, a useful quality control system to rank the lots based on their potential visual and sensory quality is important. Then, the lots can be selected based on their potential quality, match market destinations, and are subjected to proper postharvest technologies.

Effects of pre-drying methods on physicochemical, textural and color quality attributes of explosive puffed dried mandarin snacks

The effect of the pre-drying processes on the physical, chemical, microstructural, color, textural and sensory properties of mandarin chips was studied. The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of different pre-drying methods (microwave drying (MD), hot air drying (HAD), freeze-drying (FD), osmotic dehydration (OD) and microwave combined with hot air drying (HAD + MD) on mandarin chips dried with the explosive puffing drying (EPD) method. Pre-dried mandarins until the moisture content of 70% (wb) were dried at 25 kPa, 60 °C for 180 min by EPD. The hybrid method HAD + MD + EPD was shown to be the most effective method for decreasing the moisture content and water activity (aw). It was concluded that the crust structure created during the pre-drying process affected the final product’s bulk density and volumetric expansion (VE) characteristics. Therefore, the HAD + MD + EPD combination reduced porosity in mandarin snacks, resulting in lower hardness and increased crispness. Mandarin snacks produced with the FD + EPD method had the highest ascorbic acid content (297.93 ± 1.92 mg/100 gDM), total phenolic content (181.82 ± 1.05 mgGAE/100 gDM), and antioxidant activity (220.18 ± 0.46 TEAC/100 gDM), whereas samples produce with the HAD + MD + EPD method had the highest total carotenoid content and, when the sensory properties were evaluated, the highest crispness and lowest hardness value. In today’s world, where healthy snack intake is becoming more common, our study has shown that the HAD + MD + EPD method is an innovative and effective drying method for developing mandarin chips as a healthy snack food while protecting its functional and textural characteristics.

Pembinaan Peningkatan Kualitas Jajanan Anak Sekolah Dasar di SDN Tenggilis Mejoyo 1 Kota Surabaya

The consumption of children's snack foods is expected to be able to contribute energy and other nutrients that are useful for children's growth. Snacks for schoolchildren with poorly guaranteed food safety have the potential to cause poisoning and indigestion. The design used is descriptive obtained from data on the results of testing food additives in an effort to improve food safety supervision, interviews using questionnaires with food vendors. The results obtained that the knowledge of school food vendors has excellent knowledge as many as 5 people and 1 person with sufficient knowledge of food additives. Sanitary hygiene for the manufacture of tofu contents is good enough but when waiting for the frying process the ingredients are not closed. No addition of borax or dyes was found that was prohibited in snack foods at SDN Tenggilis Mejoyo 1 Surabaya City. Education about healthy snack food needs to be carried out frequently by the school in collaboration with the health office. Food and hazardous materials security monitoring activities must be carried out periodically to reduce the amount of misuse of harmful food additives

Penyuluhan tentang Diare di Panti Asuhan Harapan Mulia Kecamatan Purwokerto Timur

Introduction: Diarrhea is characterized by an increased frequency of defecation more than three times a day, accompanied by changes in the consistency of feces with or without lenders or blood. To avoid diarrhea, it is necessary to consume healthy snack foods. Diarrhea is still one of the world's biggest health problems, especially in developing countries, because the high morbidity and mortality rates are still high. Objective: Providing counseling and education to Pantai Asuhan Harapan Mulia children about diarrhea. Method: The strategy implemented to overcome the problem of diarrhea in children is to conduct counseling, where this counseling strategy will be enforced directly on the target, namely children in the Harapan Mulia Orphanage, East Purwokerto. The implementation strategy that has been carried out is the provision of health counseling on diarrhea, with the implementation of prevention, carried out jointly at the Harapan Mulia Orphanage, East Purwokerto. Result: The result of this health education promotion is the implementation of health education regarding the prevention of diarrhea at the Harapan Mulia orphanage in East Purwokerto. Before being given counseling, several children knew how to prevent diarrhea, one of them was washing their hands, but only one or two people knew the six steps of washing their right hand. Conclusion: The counseling activity was carried out at the Harapan Mulia Orphanage in Ledug, East Purwokerto. The material provided is about diarrhea which includes understanding the causes, symptoms, and ways to prevent it. Counseling is carried out using leaflets and posters that explain the six steps of excellent and correct hand washing.

Quality Assessment of Dried White Mulberry (Morus alba L.) Using Machine Vision

Over the past decade, the fresh white mulberry (Morus alba L.) fruit has gained growing interest due to its superior health and nutritional characteristics. While white mulberry is consumed as fresh fruit in several countries, it is also popular in dried form as a healthy snack food. One of the main challenges that have prevented a wider consumer uptake of this nutritious fruit is the non-uniformity in its quality grading. Therefore, identifying a reliable quality grading tool can greatly benefit the relevant stakeholders. The present research addresses this need by developing a novel machine vision system that combines the key strengths of image processing and artificial intelligence. Two grades (i.e., high- and low-quality) of white mulberry were imaged using a digital camera and 285 colour and textural features were extracted from their RGB images. Using the quadratic sequential feature selection method, a subset of 23 optimum features was identified to classify samples into two grades using artificial neural networks (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. The developed system under both classifiers achieved the highest correct classification rate (CCR) of 100%. Indeed, the latter approach offered a smaller mean squared error for the training and test sets. The developed model’s high accuracy confirms the machine vision’s suitability as a reliable, low-cost, rapid, and intelligent tool for quality monitoring of dried white mulberry.

Nutritional Content in Snack Food: Consumer Perceptions and Behaviors

People's lifestyles encouraged them to devour the main dish in a short amount of time. It demonstrated the value of snack foods as a source of supplementary energy. To present an example of marketing agro-industry in some healthy snack foods for college student, it was necessary to understand consumer behaviors regarding sugar intake in snacking. The marketers need to understand the customer perceptions and behaviors towards nutritional content in snack foods to create healthy snack food. The aims of this study were: 1) to analyze the consumer perceptions and behaviors of nutritional content in snack food products; 2) to identify dominant factors which affect the consumption of snack food products. The study was conducted on 200 respondents of college students. Snack foods were commonly consumed by college students, who were classified as adolescents, in between substantial meals. Descriptive statistics and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were performed. Consumer impressions on a preliminary assessment of the nutrition label, which includes sugar components, were determined using descriptive statistics. Furthermore, PCA was performed to identify the main consumer characteristics that affect snacking, allowing the impact of sugar content on snack food consumption. The results indicated that the consumers were concerned enough about eating nutritious meals. Consumers, on the other hand, rarely read nutrition labels. The "benefit" and "wants" factors were the most important elements affecting consumer snack food intake. The nutritious composition of snack foods, on the other hand, did not affect snack food consumption. The consumers were unconcerned about the sugar content in snack food.

Are commonly used lab-based measures of food value and choice predictive of self-reported real-world snacking? An ecological momentary assessment study.

While the assessment of actual food intake is essential in the evaluation of behaviour change interventions for weight-loss, it may not always be feasible to collect this information within traditional experimental paradigms. For this reason, measures of food preference (such as measures of food value and choice) are often used as more accessible alternatives. However, the predictive validity of these measures (in relation to subsequent food consumption) has not yet been studied. Our aim was to investigate the extent to which three commonly used measures of preference for snack foods (explicit food value, unhealthy food choice and implicit preference) predicted self-reported real-world snacking occasions. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) design. Over a seven-day study period, participants (N= 49) completed three daily assessments where they reported their healthy and unhealthy snack food consumption and completed the three measures of preference (explicit food value, unhealthy food choice and implicit preference). Our findings demonstrated some weak evidence that unhealthy Visual Analogue Scale scores predicted between-subject increases in unhealthy snacking frequency (OR=1.018 [1.006, 1.030], p= .002). No other preference measures significantly predicted self-reported healthy or unhealthy snacking occasions (ps > .05). These findings raise questions in relation to the association between measures of preference and self-reported real-world snack food consumption. Future research should further evaluate the predictive and construct validity of these measures in relation to food behaviours and explore the development of alternative assessment methods within eating behaviour research.

Testing Go/No-Go training effects on implicit evaluations of unhealthy and healthy snack foods

Objective Despite intending to eat healthy foods, people often yield to temptation. In environments rife with unhealthy food options, a positive implicit evaluation of unhealthy foods may inadvertently influence unhealthy choices. This study investigates if and under which conditions implicit evaluations of unhealthy and healthy foods can be influenced by a computer-based Go/No-Go (GNG) training. Design Undergraduate student participants (N = 161 participants; 117 females, 44 males; M age = 19 years, SD = 2 years) completed a GNG training with two healthy (grape and nut) and two unhealthy (potato chip and cookie) stimuli. Participants were either instructed to inhibit their responses to the potato chip (No-Go Chips/Go Grape) or to a grape (No-Go Grape/Go Chips). Main Outcome Measure Implicit evaluations of chips and grapes were assessed using the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task. Results This GNG training impacted implicit evaluations of chips, but not grapes. GNG training effects were stronger for participants with lower sensitivity for behavioural inhibition measured with the Behavioural Inhibition System scale. Conclusion GNG training might help people change implicit food evaluations. More research is needed to understand how individual and training characteristics affect outcomes with the goal of tailoring and optimising the GNG training to produce the strongest effect.

Nutritional and Therapeutic Potential of Sesame Seeds

The major issue of the current era is an unbalanced and poor diet like unhealthy fast foods, the main cause of various diseases. Most nutraceutical and pharma industries formulating the medicines from artificial sources are expensive and have several side effects. However, scientists are making efforts to find out the natural sources of medicines for the betterment of human health and treatment of diseases. Simultaneously, the worldwide preferences have shifted from artificial to natural resources and unconventional crops (i.e., oilseeds as protein source) and foods are becoming part of regular diet in most of the community, nutraceutical, and pharma industries. Sesame (SesamumindicumL.) is one of the unconventional crops providing multiple benefits due to its special bioactive components, such as sesamin, sesaminol, and gamma-tocopherol, and fatty acids composition like unsaturated fatty acids (i.e., oleic acid, linoleic acid, stearidonic acid, palmitoleic acid, and traces of linolenic acid). Sesame seed oil supplementation not only improves the quality of snack frying oils but also plays a key role in the formation of good quality healthy snack foods. Moreover, its seeds and oil play imperative role in the formulation of medicines utilized for different ailments. The current review highlights the importance and utilization of sesame seed and oil in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and food (especially snacks) industries.

Enhancing Community Economy Through Innovation of Processed Cassava Products

The natural resources produced by Padamulya Village are very abundant, but the natural resources owned by Padamulya Village have not been fully utilized by the community, so there is a need for guidance or assistance to the community to exploit the existing potential. One of them is by utilizing processed cassava products that are made into food with high selling price. The method used is the socialization and innovation of cassava processed products. In processing this cassava product, the writer makes cassava churros which is a delicious and healthy snack food. After implementing this program the results obtained are the development of cassava processed products more creative and innovative as well as the surrounding community better understanding how to utilize a potential that is around.Keywords: Product Innovation; Cassava; Community Service

Enhancing Community Economy Through Innovation of Processed Cassava Products

The natural resources produced by Padamulya Village are very abundant, but the natural resources owned by Padamulya Village have not been fully utilized by the community, so there is a need for guidance or assistance to the community to exploit the existing potential. One of them is by utilizing processed cassava products that are made into food with high selling price. The method used is the socialization and innovation of cassava processed products. In processing this cassava product, the writer makes cassava churros which is a delicious and healthy snack food. After implementing this program the results obtained are the development of cassava processed products more creative and innovative as well as the surrounding community better understanding how to utilize a potential that is around.Keywords: Product Innovation; Cassava; Community Service

Snacking Behavior Differs Between Evening and Morning Chronotype Individuals but Chronotype Is Not Associated With Energy Intake and Diet Quality

Abstract Objectives There is a growing body of literature that links a person's preferred time for activities and sleep cycle, or chronotype, to eating behaviors and the risk of becoming overweight or obese. However, the relationships among chronotype, snacking behavior, diet quality, and food cravings are poorly characterized among US adults. This cross-sectional study examined the associations among chronotype, snacking habits, dietary intake and quality, and food cravings these relationships. Methods One-hundred adults (mean age: 28.4 ± 7.3 y; 63% female) living in the United States completed the study. Based on their score on the HorneÖstberg Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire, an individual was categorized into morning-type (M-type), intermediate-type (I-type), or evening-type (E-type). Snack intake was assessed using a previously published specialized food frequency questionnaire. Diet quality was obtained using the Diet History Questionnaire III. The validated General Food Cravings Questionnaire-Trait measured cravings. General linear regression was used to assess differences in outcomes among chronotypes. Results Over the course of a week, E-type individuals consumed snacks more often than the M-type (E-type: 13.9 ± 4.5, M-type: 11.2 ± 4.6; P = 0.002), but not the I-type (10.1 ± 4.1; P = 0.086). In terms of timing of snacking, E-type individuals consumed more snacks after dinner than the M-type (E-type: 5.3 ± 1.6; M-type: 3.7 ± 2.2; P < 0.001). E-type individuals consumed more energy-dense snacks (E-type: 14.4 ± 4.4; M-type: 11.3 ± 4.7; P = 0.005), especially candies (E-type: 2.0 ± 1.0; M-type: 1.1 ± 0.9, P = 0.005), than the M-type. However, there were no significant differences in healthy snack frequency, food cravings, diet quality, and energy and macronutrient intake among chronotypes (P > 0.05, for all). Conclusions In this relatively young population, E-type individuals consumed snacks more frequently than M-types. However, chronotypes were not associated with an individual's energy intake, diet quality, and food cravings, which suggests that chronotype negligibly influences weight gain risk in this young adult population. Funding Sources USDA NIFA and Michigan AgBioResearch.

A study to assess the snacking pattern among adolescents and young adults and its effect on the meal pattern and overall nutritional status

A very high proportion of adolescents and young adults have a habit of snacking in between meals. Snacking might influence the meal patterns of the youth and contribute to improper nutritional intake and skipping of meals. Objective: To study the association of snacking pattern with skipping of meals and to observe the impact of snacking pattern on the nutritional status of the adolescents and young adults.Methodology: A random sampling method was used for a co relational study with sample size of 150 from Mumbai City. Survey based research design was used, where the information was obtained with the help of Google forms from individuals of the age group 13 to 25 years. Out of the 150 participants, 48.7% were males and 51.3% were females. The analysis was done using Statistical Package of Social Software for Windows (SPSS, version 20). The analysis of data included t-tests, Chi-Square tests and ANOVA. p value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Approximately 50% of the participants who skipped breakfast were known to consume snacks on a regular basis with p value < 0.05. The most common reason found for snacking was cravings in 62% of the participants followed by boredom (57.7%), stress (44.4%), tiredness (36.6%), as a reward (33.8%) and sadness (30.3%) with p value < 0.05. The frequency of consumption of unhealthy snacks was higher in males as compared to females with p value < 0.05. The consumption of healthy snack foods was found to be higher in females as compared to males with p value < 0.05. It was also found that the frequency of skipping meals was lower in females as compared to males. The energy, carbohydrate and fat consumption was significantly higher in participants who consumed snacks due to stress than the ones who did not snack due to stress. (p

Home Snack Environments in the United States: Latent Class Analysis Findings From a Home Food Environment Survey.

Snacking occasions have increased in frequency and energy density in recent decades, with considerable implications for diet. Studies have linked presence of foods in the home with intake of those foods. This study examines home snack food inventories among a large sample of U.S. adults using latent class analysis findings to present latent classes of home snack food inventories and multinomial regression to model classes as correlates of percent of calories from fat. Participants (n = 4,896) completed an online household food environment survey including presence of 23 snack foods in the home and demographics. Less healthy snack foods were more commonly reported than healthier snack foods (M = 4.3 vs. M = 3.5). Among White and Latinx participants, high-income households reported greater numbers of both healthier and less healthy snack foods than lower income households, with larger income-based differences in inventory sizes for healthier snack foods. Latent class analysis revealed three classes by inventory size (Small, Medium, and Large) and three classes by inventory content (Healthy Snacks, Standard American, and Limited Standard American). Compared with the Small Inventory class, the Healthy Snacks class had lower caloric intake from fat (p = .002), the Large and Medium Inventory classes had much higher caloric intake from fat (p < .0001), and Standard American and Limited Standard American class members had somewhat higher caloric intake from fat (p < .0001, and p = .0001, respectively). Future research should explore the role of snacks in Americans' diets, their impact on diet quality and health, and how interventions can support healthy home food and snack food environments to foster healthy eating.

Quality evaluation of probiotics enriched Chinese yam snacks produced using infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying

A novel infrared-assisted spouted bed drying (IRSBD) was adopted in this work to produce probiotics enriched Chinese yam snacks with high quality. The effects of drying temperature (30°C, 40°C, 50°C, 60°C, and 70°C) and airflow speed (16, 19, 22, 25, and 28 m/s) on drying characteristics, probiotics retention as well as storage stability and physical-chemical qualities of yam snacks were studied. Results showed that the higher drying temperature and higher airflow speed were beneficial to shorten the drying time. Drying conditions had great effects on the polysaccharide yield, color, sensory quality, and storage stability of dried yams. Based on weighted comprehensive scoring, the product scores ranged from −1.092 to 0.647 were obtained. The optimal drying parameters for probiotics enriched Chinese yams were drying temperature of 40°C and airflow speed of 22 m/s. Under this condition, the probiotics could remain above 1 × 106 CFU/g for 42 days. Practical applications The healthy snack foods enriched with probiotics can meet consumers’ health demands, providing intestinal protection for people. In order to keep probiotics active, freeze-drying are generally used but with high cost. IRSBD is an innovative combined drying technology based on infrared drying (IRD) and spouted bed drying (SBD) to overcome the nonuniform infrared heating of IRD and enhance the thermal efficiency of SBD. It was employed to dehydrate probiotics enriched Chinese yam, the products with best quality and storage stability were achieved under conditions that drying temperature of 40°C and airflow speed of 22 m/s. IRSBD provides a potential method for producing dried and probiotics enriched fruit and vegetable snacks with high-quality.

Pengetahuan dan Sikap Anak tentang Makanan Jajanan Sehat melalui Permainan Ular Tangga

This study aimed to determine the knowledge and attitudes of healthy snack children through snake and ladder games in Lubuk Pakam sub-district. This research is a quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design of two groups of the pretest-posttest system. The results showed that by using the statistical test, the value of p = 0.000 &lt;0.05. Based on the pretest and post-test results on 54 students, the average change in knowledge before the intervention was 12.8, and the closest intervention was 15.5. The shift in attitude before the intervention was 10.2, and after the intervention was 12.8. In conclusion, there is the influence of snake and ladder game counseling on healthy snack foods on elementary school children's knowledge and attitudes.&#x0D; &#x0D; Keywords: Healthy Snacks, Knowledge, Attitudes, Snakes, and ladders

Exploring the directionality in the relationship between descriptive and injunctive parental and peer norms and snacking behavior in a three-year-cross-lagged study

BackgroundPeople’s eating behavior is assumed to be influenced by what other people do (perceived descriptive norms) and what others approve of (perceived injunctive norms). It has been suggested that adolescents are more susceptible to peer norms than parental norms, because they experience a strong need for group acceptance that leads to conforming to peer group norms. The current study examined changes in snacking behavior and four types of social norms (i.e., parental and peer descriptive and injunctive norms) that promoted fruit and vegetable intake among adolescents. This study was the first to examine whether snacking behavior also influenced norm perceptions by testing the directionality of these associations.MethodsThe study consisted of 819 participants (M [SD] age = 11.19 [1.36]; 46.1% boys), collected at three time points (T1 = 2016, T2 = 2017 and T3 = 2018) during the MyMovez project. Self-reported frequency of snack consumption, perceived parental and peer descriptive and injunctive norms were assessed. The primary analysis consisted of a series of cross-lagged autoregressive models specified in a structural equation modeling framework.ResultsModel comparisons testing the descriptive and injunctive norms in separate models and in an additional combined model revealed evidence for bi-directional associations between norms and snacking behavior. Descriptive peer and parent norms were not found to have an effect on subsequent snacking behaviors. Perceived injunctive parental norms were positively associated with healthy snack food intake and negatively associated with unhealthy snack intake (forward direction). Injunctive peer norms were negatively associated with healthy snack food intake. In addition, higher unhealthy snack food intake was negatively associated with the perception of descriptive and injunctive parental norms 1 year later (reversed direction). We did not find peer norms to be more closely associated with changes in snacking behaviors compared to parental norms.ConclusionsParents expecting their children to snack healthy had a positive influence on healthy snacking behavior whereas only acting as a healthy role model did not. Future research should address the possible interaction between descriptive and injunctive norms. Research should also take into account the bi-directional relations between eating behaviors and normative perceptions.