"Association between stages of behavior change and self-efficacy for healthy eating practices with consumption of unprocessed, minimally processed and ultra-processed foods among scholar adolescents in the Federal District"
“Adolescent, Feeding Behavior, Transtheoretical Model, Self Efficacy
“The study aimed to investigate the association between the consumption of unprocessed, minimally processed, and ultra-processed foods with stages of change and self-efficacy for healthy eating practices among adolescents. Sociodemographic data, previous day's food consumption, stages of change, and self-efficacy for healthy eating practices were collected from 500 ninth-grade adolescents from public and private schools in the Federal District. Associations were analyzed using Poisson regression models with robust variance. About a quarter of the adolescents consumed more than 5 groups of ultra-processed foods (23.5%; 95%CI: 69.8-81.9) and 64.3% consumed less than 5 groups of unprocessed and minimally processed foods (95%CI: 57.4-70.7) on the previous day. More than half (51.7%) were in the pre-contemplation/contemplation/decision stages (95%CI: 44.6- 58.7) and 30.3% in the third quartile of self-efficacy (95%CI: 3.0-13.6). Consumption of unprocessed and minimally processed foods was higher in the action/maintenance stages (PR: 1.58; 95%CI: 1.07-2.33) and in the third (PR: 1.83; 95%CI: 1.08-3.11) and fourth (PR: 1.77; 95%CI: 1.05- 2.96) quartiles of self-efficacy compared to the consumption of adolescents in the initial stages and the first quartile of self-efficacy, respectively. No association was identified between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and stages of change and self-efficacy for healthy eating practices (p>0.05). The association found reinforces the importance of educational actions that encourage healthy eating habits and promote adolescents' self-confidence, aiming to increase the consumption of foods that are markers of a healthy diet among adolescents.”