Abstract
Background: Identifying when and where people overeat is important for intervention design, yet little is known about how unhealthy behaviours unfold in real life.
Aim: To track the activities, social contexts and locations that co-occur with unhealthy snacking.
Methods: 64 adults (49F, mean age= 38.6 years) used electronic diaries to record snacking, location, social context and current activity every waking hour over 7 days. The proportion of snacking episodes that co-occurred with each location/activity/context were calculated by group and individual.
Results: Over the group, snacking was most frequent whilst socialising (19.9% of hours spent socialising) or using the TV/computer (19.7%), when with friends (16.7%) and when at home (15.3%). All intra-class correlation statistics for cued behaviour were low, indicating the importance of within-person variability. There were marked individual differences between people in what constituted a ‘typical’ context for snacking.
Conclusions: People show substantial differences in the contexts in which they snack. Tailoring interventions to these individual patterns of behaviour may improve intervention efficacy.
Aim: To track the activities, social contexts and locations that co-occur with unhealthy snacking.
Methods: 64 adults (49F, mean age= 38.6 years) used electronic diaries to record snacking, location, social context and current activity every waking hour over 7 days. The proportion of snacking episodes that co-occurred with each location/activity/context were calculated by group and individual.
Results: Over the group, snacking was most frequent whilst socialising (19.9% of hours spent socialising) or using the TV/computer (19.7%), when with friends (16.7%) and when at home (15.3%). All intra-class correlation statistics for cued behaviour were low, indicating the importance of within-person variability. There were marked individual differences between people in what constituted a ‘typical’ context for snacking.
Conclusions: People show substantial differences in the contexts in which they snack. Tailoring interventions to these individual patterns of behaviour may improve intervention efficacy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 179-184 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Nutrition and Health |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 26 Jul 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2019 |
Bibliographical note
This study was funded by the Rural and Environmental Science and AnalyticalServices Division, Scottish Government. JA is currently a Royal Society of Edinburgh
Sabbatical Grant holder.
Keywords
- snacking
- overweight
- obesity
- context
- individual differences
- real time
- Snacking
Access to Document
- Accepted Manuscript
As accepted for publication in Allan et al, Tracking snacking in real time: Time to look at individualised patterns of behaviour, Nutrition and Health. Volume: 25 issue: 3, page(s): 179-184. Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). DOI: 10.1177/0260106019866099