Table 1.
Description of individual-level; home/family, peer, school, and neighborhood environment; and screen media exposure measuresa,b,c
| Sourcea | Survey items or description | |
|---|---|---|
| Individual-level factors | ||
| Identity as a picky eater | A | I am a picky eater. Four responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. (Test-retest r=0.75) |
| Perceived cost barriers to healthy eating | A | Eating healthy just costs too much. Four responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. (Test-retest r=0.58) |
| Involvement in at-home food preparation | A | In the past week, how many times did you help make dinner or supper for your family? (Test-retest r=0.61) |
| Meal skipping | A | During the past week, how many days did you eat breakfast? Two similar statements were used to separately ask about lunch and dinner. A dichotomous indicator of meal skipping was defined by reporting any meal was consumed on fewer than five days of the week. (Test-retest agreement=84%) |
| Depressive symptoms | A | Kandel and Davies’ six-item scale for adolescents (Kandel & Davies, 1982) was used to assess the frequency of symptoms during the past year. (Cronbach's α = 0.83, Test-retest r=0.75) |
| Weight-related concerns | A | How strongly do you agree with the following statements? Two statements (e.g., I think a lot about being thinner). Four responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. (Cronbach's α = 0.83, Test-retest r=0.77) |
| Weight change intentions | A | Adolescents were asked to indicate if they were currently trying to lose weight, stay the same weight, gain weight, or not trying to do anything about their weight. (Test-retest agreement=82%) |
| Weight control behaviors | ||
| Dieting in past year | A | How often have you gone on a diet during the last year? By “diet” we mean changing the way you eat so you can lose weight. Responses were dichotomized into non-dieters (responded never) and dieters (other responses). (Test-retest agreement=82%) |
| Healthy diet and exercise behaviors | A | How often have you done each of the following things in order to lose weight or keep from gaining weight during the past year? Six behaviors were categorized as healthy (e.g., ate less high-fat foods, exercise, ate less sweets). Four responses ranging from never to on a regular basis. (Cronbach's α = 0.88, Test-retest r=0.71). |
| Unhealthy diet and extreme behaviors | A | Have you done any of the following things in order to lose weight or keep from gaining weight during the past year? Nine behaviors were categorized as unhealthy (e.g., ate very little food, took diet pills, smoked more cigarettes) and responses were dichotomized according to the use of none or any behaviors. (Test-retest agreement=85%) |
| Snacks prepared away from home frequency | A | How many times each week do you usually eat after-school snacks or foods prepared away from home? A similar statement was used to separately ask about late night snacks. Responses were summed to represent weekly frequency of consuming a snack prepared away from home. |
| Snacks while watching television frequency | A | How often do you snack while watching TV? Five responses ranging from never to always. (Test-retest r=0.63) |
| Media use: television viewing hours, video gaming hours | A | Average weekly hours spent on television viewing and video gaming were calculated based on separate reports of free time use on an average weekday (Monday-Friday) and weekend day (Saturday or Sunday). Viewing television was described as watching TV/DVDs/videos and video gaming as Xbox/Play-station/other electronic games that you play when siting. (Test-retest r=0.86) |
| Team sport involvement | A | During the past 12 months, on how many sports teams did you play? (Test-retest r=0.86) |
| Sleep hours | A | Average hours of sleep per day was calculated based on reports of usual bedtimes and wake-up times for an average weekday (Monday-Friday) and separately for an average weekend day (Saturday or Sunday). Bedtime was defined as when you go to bed (to go to sleep) and wake-up time was defined as when you get out of bed (to start your day) (Pasch, Laska, Lytle, & Moe, 2010; Wolfson et al., 2003). |
| Home/family characteristics | ||
| Home unhealthy food availability | A | How often are the following true? Four statements (e.g., Potato chips or other salty snacks are available in my home). Four responses ranging from never to always. (Cronbach's α = 0.79, Test-retest r=0.65) |
| Household food security | P | Six-item short form of the U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module (Blumberg et al., 1999). (Test-retest r=0.77) |
| Family meal frequency | P | During the past week, how many times did all, or most, of your family living in your household eat a meal together? (Test-retest r=0.72) |
| Perceived encouragement to eat healthy foods | A | My mother (father) encourages me to eat healthy foods. Four responses ranging from not at all to very much. Average scores were determined based on responses for mother and father. (Test-retest r=0.61) |
| Parental restriction of high-calorie food | P | Modified restriction subscale of the Child-Feeding Questionnaire (Kaur et al., 2006). How much do you agree with the following statements? Six statements (e.g., If I did not guide or regulate my child's eating, he/she would eat too much of his/her favorite foods.). Four responses ranging from disagree to agree. (Cronbach's α = 0.86, Test-retest r=0.68). |
| Peer characteristics | ||
| Perceived attitudes/ behavior | ||
| Think it is important to eat healthy foods | A | Many of my friends think it is important to eat healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. Four response options ranging from not at all to very much. |
| Diet to control weight | A | Many of my friends diet to lose weight or keep from gaining weight. Four response options ranging from not at all to very much. |
| Friends’ weight-related behaviors | ||
| Snack food intake | F | Daily servings were estimated by summing reported intake of 21 common energy-dense, nutrient-poor snack food items (salty snacks, baked sweets, candy, and frozen desserts). Average number of daily snack food servings among nominated friends was calculated. |
| Dieting | F | How often have you gone on a diet during the last year? By “diet” we mean changing the way you eat so you can lose weight. Responses were dichotomized into non-dieters (responded never) and dieters. The proportion of nominated friends who were dieters was calculated. |
| Meal skipping | F | During the past week, how many days did you eat breakfast? Two similar statements were used to separately ask about lunch and dinner. A dichotomous indicator of meal skipping was defined by reporting any meal was consumed on fewer than five days of the week and the proportion of nominated friends who were skipping meals was calculated. |
| School characteristics | ||
| Presence of fast-food restaurant in 800 m | N | Commercial databases were used along with NAICS codes (722110, 722211, 722212, and 722213) to identify restaurants and both chain names and 18 key words (e.g., take out, fried, pizza) were used to identify fast-food restaurants within network buffers. |
| Presence of convenience store in 800 m | N | Commercial databases were used along with NAICS codes (44512, 44711, and 44719) to identify convenience stores, including gas stations, within network buffers. |
| Campus availability of competitive foods | SF | Are there any vending machines in your school that are available to students before or during the school day? Does your school offer a la carte options at lunch? Yes/no responses were combined to indicated 0=not available, 1=a la carte or vending available, or 3=both a la carte and vending available. |
| Classroom food policies | SA | Please indicate whether any of the following practices occur at your school. Response options (no; yes, it is up to the teacher; yes, but it is discouraged) were dichotomized for two practices: 1) students are allowed to eat food during class (other than for parties or special events) and 2) food is used as a reward for good behavior and/or academic performance. |
| Schools’ commitment to promotion of healthy eating | SA | In your opinion, to what extent has your school made a serious/real effort to promote healthy food and beverage habits among students? Five response options ranging from not at all to a very great extent. |
| Norms number of snacks during school day | A | Fill in the number of snacks (food or drinks) eaten on school days. Five responses ranging from none to 4 or more. Responses for snacks consumed 1) between breakfast and lunch and 2) after lunch, before dinner were summed. The average number of daily snacks consumed among surveyed students at each school was calculated. |
| Neighborhood characteristics | ||
| Presence of fast-food restaurant in 1200 m | N | Commercial databases were used along with NAICS codes (722110, 722211, 722212, and 722213) to identify restaurants and both chain names and 18 key words (e.g., take out, fried, pizza) were used to identify fast-food restaurants within network buffers (Forsyth et al., 2012). |
| High density of fast-food restaurants in 1600 m | N | A dichotomous indicator of high density of fast-food restaurants was defined by the presence of five or more fast-food restaurants (the sample median) accessible near the participant's home (Forsyth et al., 2012). |
| Presence of convenience store in 1200 m | N | Commercial databases were used along with NAICS codes (44512, 44711, and 44719) to identify convenience stores, including gas stations, within network buffers (Forsyth et al., 2012). |
| Screen media characteristics | ||
| Snack incident frequency | O | Coders recorded any time a food was shown on screen during a popular television show and identified snack incidents based on time cues, the number of foods, dialogue, and other context (e.g., a meal eaten during school-day coded as lunch). Inter-coder reliability for identifying meal types (including snacks) was very high across the two waves of coding (κ=0.98-1.0). The average number of snacks shown in participant's three favorite television shows was calculated (Mean=5.5, SD=4.0), Range=0-18) (Eisenberg et al., 2016). |
| Unhealthy snack food incident percentage | O | The overall healthfulness of foods shown as part of each snack incident was coded as mostly healthy (i.e., well-balanced meals, fruit, vegetables, lean proteins, cheese, yogurt), mostly unhealthy (i.e., sweets such as baked desserts and candy, potato chips, snack foods, sugared cereal), or unclear. Inter-coder reliability for the healthfulness of food items was initially moderate (κ=0.51) but improved after additional training and for the second wave of coding (κ=1.0). The average proportion of snacks including unhealthy foods for a participant's three favorite television shows was calculated (Mean=22.1%, SD=30.2%, range=0-100%) (Eisenberg et al., 2016). |
a
A, adolescent report; F, friend report; N, Geographic Information System data sources; O, measured; P, parent report; SA, school administrator; SF, school foodservice manager; ST, school physical activity teacher
b
SD, standard deviation
c
NAICS, North American Industrial Classification System