Abstract
High school students in the United States are known to be frequent skippers of breakfast. Social support is one key element needed to encourage adolescents to consume school breakfast. This article presents an analysis of the influence of a school policy and environment change intervention on the social support of adolescents to eat breakfast. Method. The intervention included school policy changes in 16 schools randomized to intervention and delayed-intervention conditions, in order to allow quick and easy access to breakfast as well as to allow breakfast consumption in classrooms and hallways; a School Breakfast Program marketing campaign to address normative and attitudinal beliefs; and increasing social support and role modeling to encourage breakfast eating. The participants in the study completed an online survey at baseline and again postintervention. Results. The final analysis included only students who completed the relevant survey (n = 904) items on both the baseline and follow-up surveys. The students in the intervention group showed a higher level of social support post intervention than the control group with a significant adjusted p of.02. Most of the overall social support change was explained by a change in the “other kids at my school” and “other school staff” categories. Conclusions. The BreakFAST study shows the benefits of school staff and kids other than friends supporting a behavior change to include breakfast consumption in adolescents.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 862-868 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Health Promotion Practice |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 1 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:1St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN, USA 2University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA Authors’ Note: We would like to acknowledge the schools participating in this study, University of Minnesota Extension staff, Community Blueprint, and all study staff for their dedication and commitment to this research. Grant Number R01HL113235 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (PI: Marilyn S. Nanney). ClinicalTrials.gov Unique ID: 1111S06384. The data for this study were managed through REDCap Grant Number UL1TR000114 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Address correspondence to Julie Mumm, St. Catherine University, Henrietta Schmoll School of Health, 2004 Randolph Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105, USA; e-mail: jrmumm@stkate.edu.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, © 2017 Society for Public Health Education.
Keywords
- adolescent
- barriers
- rural
- school breakfast
- social support
