Eating Habits of Youth
Main Article Content
Abstract
Youth eating habits are formed within a rapidly changing nutritional, social, and digital environment. Adolescence and emerging adulthood are periods of accelerated growth, increasing autonomy, identity formation, and transition from family-controlled meals to independent food purchasing. These developmental changes occur alongside expanding access to ultra-processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, food-delivery platforms, influencer marketing, irregular schedules, and high screen exposure. This structured narrative review synthesizes recent evidence on the eating habits of youth, with emphasis on adolescents aged 10–19 years and young adults up to 24 years. It examines meal regularity, breakfast consumption, snacking, fruit and vegetable intake, dietary diversity, ultra-processed food use, sugary and energy drinks, family meals, emotional eating, and screen-linked eating. It also analyses determinants at individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, commercial, and policy levels. Current evidence indicates that unhealthy eating among youth is rarely the result of knowledge deficits alone.
Food affordability, time pressure, peer norms, family routines, retail exposure, targeted digital marketing, sleep disruption, mental distress, and limited cooking opportunities interact to shape daily choices. Poor-quality dietary patterns are associated with excess adiposity, micronutrient deficiencies, dental disease, poorer sleep, adverse cardiometabolic profiles, and disordered eating risk, although causal certainty varies across outcomes because much of the literature is cross-sectional. Indian evidence illustrates a double burden: persistent undernutrition and iron inadequacy coexist with rising intake of packaged foods, saturated fat, and commercially promoted snacks.
Effective action therefore requires multilevel intervention. School and college standards, healthy procurement, water access, food literacy and cooking skills, family engagement, marketing restrictions, front-of-pack labels, fiscal measures, and digital safeguards should reinforce one another. Future research should use longitudinal designs, objective dietary assessment, culturally valid tools, and equity-focused evaluation. Youth should be involved in designing interventions so that recommendations are practical, affordable, socially acceptable, and sustainable.
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