Cool and independent or foolish and undisciplined? Adolescents' prototypes of (un)healthy eaters and their association with eating behaviour.
OBJECTIVE
The Prototype/Willingness model states that adolescents' willingness to engage in health-related behaviours is determined by the favourability of prototypes of persons engaging in this behaviour. The objective of the present study is to systematically investigate the content and evaluation of adolescents' prototypes of (un)healthy eaters and examine their associations with eating behaviour.


METHODS
Four studies (including a pilot study) were conducted that addressed the salience (N=79), the characteristics (N=287), and the evaluation (N=167) of eater prototypes, and their association with eating behaviour (N=97), respectively.


RESULTS
These studies revealed that (1) adolescents hold salient and distinct images of typical (un)healthy eaters; (2) the healthy eater prototype mostly consists of positive traits whereas the unhealthy eater prototype reflects mostly negative traits; (3) eater-specific prototypes are distinct from generic risk prototypes and unrelated to age, bodyweight, and social desirability; and (4) unhealthy eater prototypes are significantly associated with unhealthy eating behaviour.


CONCLUSIONS
Adolescents hold relatively unfavourable social images of unhealthy eaters and relatively favourable images of healthy eaters. Only unhealthy eater prototypes are associated with actual food consumption, suggesting that addressing unhealthy eater prototypes may be an important and novel ingredient of interventions aimed at changing adolescents' unhealthy eating habits.
Gerrits
Joanne H
JH
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
de Ridder
Denise T D
DT
de Wit
John B F
JB
Kuijer
Roeline G
RG
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D001294:Attitude to Health; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015444:Exercise; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012907:Smoking; D012928:Social Desirability; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires