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Although adolescents and older adults are often targets for nutritional change interventions, little has been done to explore how people in these transitional life phases perceive the matter themselves. The aim of this paper is to explore and compare adolescents' and older adults' own perceptions of the barriers and facilitators of a change towards healthier eating.

This study design consisted of four focus groups that were conducted with adolescents and older adults to identify their health orientations, and their expected and experienced outcomes and self-efficacies in implementing approach and avoidance behaviours in relation to healthy eating, i.e. increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables and decreasing consumption of soft drinks and red meat.

The study resulted in a number of interesting insights, e.g. that older and younger participants alike: were keen not to seem “overly healthy” to their important others, had a demonstratively detached orientation towards healthy eating and felt that their diets were generally healthy (although this was generally disproved by their self-reported intake data).

The study and findings reported in this article contribute by providing the first steps towards a better understanding of how social cognition and self-efficacy perceptions related to healthy eating develop in the transitional phases of adolescence and older adulthood. In order to complement and validate the findings of the study; and with the aim of facilitating efficient nutritional change interventions directed at adolescents and older people, further studies should be conducted.

The purpose of this paper is to describe two exploratory studies of how experience (lacking, failed, or successful) of trying to implement healthy eating behaviours influences future intentions to maintain and expand such behaviours (so called “spillover”).

The two survey-based (n=2,120) studies involved Danes aged 13-15 and 55-70 years, respectively.

The studies showed that the self-reported experience of successfully increasing the intake of healthy (fruit and vegetables) and decreasing the intake of less healthy (soft drinks and animal fats) categories had spillover effects on the intention to pursue these behaviours in the future. For all the categories included, the intentions of the respondents who had tried and succeeded were significantly higher than those of the other respondents. The intentions of the group who had tried but failed were also significantly higher compared to those of the non-triers. Moreover, whether successful or not, both the experience of trying to increase the intake of healthy and to reduce the intake of less healthy food had a significant positive influence on the intention to try the opposite type of behaviour in the future. Healthy (fruit and vegetables) and decreasing the intake of less healthy (soft drinks and animal fats) categories had spillover effects on the intention to pursue these behaviours in the future. For all the categories included, the intentions of the respondents who had tried and succeeded were significantly higher than those of the other respondents. The intentions of the group who had tried but failed were also significantly higher compared to those of the non-triers. Moreover, whether successful or not, both the experience of trying to increase the intake of healthy and to reduce the intake of less healthy food had a significant positive influence on the intention to try the opposite type of behaviour in the future.

As regards spillover between approach and avoidance behaviours related to healthy eating, only few studies have been published. The studies reported here contribute to the understanding of how experience with different types of healthy eating affect future intentions to change eating habits and provides insight for health promoters in their choice of which specific eating behaviours to address.