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Reading the Labels

Among the array of different brands, colorful packages, and signs pointing to frozen foods that are fun and easy to make is another consideration begging for teenagers attention: good nutrition. Giant Foods, a supermarket chain in the Washington, D.C., area, now distributes bright orange and green leaflets addressing nutrition concerns for teenagers. The Choice Is Yours When Eating on the Run, reads one flyerwhich lists a number of healthy food choices. For instance, it recommends selecting cheese pizza over nachos because both have calcium but nachos can have twice the fat and sodium.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, teenagers talk a healthy diet, but act differently. For example, the poll of 375 teenagers found that teens said they selected a diet they thought was good for them. But, potato or corn chips, cookies, candies, ice cream, and other sweets led the list of preferred snack foods. Only 10 percent named fruit as their favorite snack food.

The Teen and Food Nutrition Study provided more evidence that teenagers do not, in fact, select healthy snacks. Potato chips were the favorite with almost three-fourths of respondents, ice cream was second, and candy third.

Half the teenage shoppers said they never read labels. Of those who do, calorie content was by far the most sought information.

Special Cases

The link between diet and health does seem to impress teenagers when nutrition affects their special needs. Now that Michael Shaw plays basketball in the winter and is on the golf team in the spring, he says he has been making healthier between-meal snack selections. When his 18-year-old sister Leslie was a star high school gymnast, she strictly followed a high-carbohydrate diet recommended by her coach.

Dieting to lose weight is by far the most common concern of teenagers. Forty-three percent of the teenagers in the Teen and Food Nutrition Study said they had tried to lose weight in the last year. More than half (55 percent) of these teenagers attempted to lose weight by cutting out desserts and sweets. Increasing physical activity was second and skipping meals third.

It's well accepted that anorexia and bulemia are problems that often begin in adolescence. (See The Gender Gap at the Dinner Table, in the June 1984 FDA Consumer.) A Giant Foods leaflet recognizes the prevalence of dieting and the potential for teenagers to develop eating disorders and suggests low-calorie but nutritious meals that teenagers can pick up at the grocery store: salad bar selections, self-serve frozen yogurt, and soup or chili from the soup bar. Chili, for example, says the Giant flyer, provides iron from beef and beans, and coleslaw provides vitamin C and is low in calories. In its information directed to teenagers, Giant says, What may surprise the dieter is that the body actually responds to crash dieting as it would to starvation. The body lowers its metabolic rate, the pamphlet explains, thus burning fewer calories.

Findings from a recent, small study conducted by the National Dairy Council suggest that nutrition education in schools may encourage teenagers to improve their eating habits. However, as Teenage Research Unlimited's Peter Zollo acknowledges, the effect of large-scale nutrition education campaigns on teenagers has yet to be explored by market researchers.

Teenagers like Jer and Di Onna seem to be most influenced by information they pick up from their families. Nutrition can become a family concern. Ellyn Satter, a family therapist and dietitian with the Family Therapy Center in Madison, Wis., points out that parents plan the menus for their young children and set an eating style for the family.

Driver's License and Grocery Cart

Teenagers most likely to be checking out the supermarket are from upper and lower income families in cities and lower income families in small towns, found Teenage Research Unlimited. That's where the greatest percentage of working mothers are. Traditional male/female roles also are changing. Although 94 percent of teenage females surveyed were shoppers, 90 percent of the males were also doing the food shopping. Of 35 percent of teens shopping one or more times a week, reports a recent issue of Food Processing magazine, the boys are shopping 8 percent more than the girls.

Most of these teenagers are 16 or older (the age when, in most states, teenagers can obtain their driver's license). Perhaps the trend of the future will be for 16-year-olds first to obtain their driver's license, next the family car, and then a grocery shopping cart.

Tags: Nutrition

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