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The purpose of this paper is to explore associations between food-related self-control, intentions, descriptive peer norms, parents’ healthy eating guidance and adolescents’ consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) in a school lunch setting. An additional aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the measure used to assess food-related self-control in order to reveal potential multi-dimensionality.

A web-based survey was conducted among 694 Norwegian high school students. Multiple logistic regression was used to explore associations between the independent variables and SSB consumption. Psychometric evaluation of the self-control measure included factor analysis and internal consistency reliability.

Factor analysis resulted in two food-related self-control dimensions: resistance and avoidance. Multiple logistic regression showed that intentions was the strongest predictor of SSB consumption in the sample. Avoidance and descriptive peer norms appeared as weaker predictors.

Based on the findings, the authors suggest that future studies may consider developing guiding principles on how to create health-promoting eating intentions in adolescents, how to deal with peer norms related to foods and beverages and how to avoid tempting stimuli in the environment. Such strategies may be helpful when structural changes in the environment are not feasible in the near future.

An original aspect of the present study is that it includes a psychometric analysis of a supposedly one-dimensional self-control measure. Further, it adds to the knowledge about variables associated with adolescent SSB consumption in a school lunch context.

The majority of previous studies on parental feeding practices have focused on the effect of controlling feeding strategies on child eating and weight (i.e. parental influence on children). The present study turns the arrow in the opposite direction, and it aims to test a child-responsive model by exploring the process in which child weight status might influence parental feeding practices, addressing potential mediating effects of parental concern for child weight (i.e. child influence on parents).

A cross-sectional survey was performed among parents of 10- to 12-year olds (n = 963). The survey questionnaire included measures of parental feeding practices and parents’ reports of child weight and height. Stepwise regressions were performed to reveal potential mediating effects of parental concern for child weight status on the associations between child BMI and a wide range of parental feeding practices.

Our results suggest a mediating effect of parental concern for child overweight on the associations between child body mass index and controlling feeding practices such as restriction for weight and health purposes and responsibility for determining child portion sizes.

This study provides an extension of previous research on parental feeding–child weight relationship. It includes a wider spectrum of feeding variables, and integrates parental concern for both child who is overweight and child who is underweight as potential mediators of the associations between child weight and parental feeding practices. Moreover, it has its focus on preadolescent children, while previous studies have focused on infants and young children.