This study tested the utility of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain adolescent fast-food consumption among 349 high school adolescents. Subjective norms were further investigated to identify how parents and friends influenced adolescent fast-food consumption. Study participants completed a paper-based questionnaire measuring adolescent attitude, subjective norms for parents and friends, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention. Path analysis revealed that TPB explained adolescent fast-food behavioral intention to consume fast food. The model identified parent subjective norms had the strongest relationship with adolescent behavioral intention to consume fast food. Parent norms differed across age and grade in high school. Older adolescents perceived more approval for eating fast food than younger adolescents. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The chief functions of food may be said to be three--growth, maintenance and proper functioning. Food consists of those substances which yield energy, build tissue, or regulate body processes. The essential substances of an adequate food supply are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, mineral salts, water, cellulose and vitamins Obviously these requirements vary with each individual child, since height weight, shape, age, sex, and nervous tension must all be considered as determining factors in health, while any diseased condition, sometimes unsuspected, presents additional complications. The first special characters of Chinese food is the preponderance of cereal grain of one kind or another--rice, wheat, buckwheat, barley, millet, glutinous millet, kaoliang, corn, maize--sometimes a mixture of two or more of them. Meat consumption is China is very small There is also a deficiency of fat in Chinese food. Our first problem of food for Chinese children is "What are the effects of diets composed mainly of cereals?" Our second problem is "What diet, then, is most likely to be the best for Chinese children?" It seems that Chinese children must rely on soybeans, eggs, and fish to correct the deficiency of vitamin B and of protein in their rice diet. In short, a diet made up of whole cereal, such as whole rice or whole wheat, soybean, soybean milk, the products of soybean milk, such as soybean curd (soybean cheese), soybean paste, and soybean powder, vegetables, such as bamboo shoots, water chestnut, and lotus roots, fresh fruits, eggs, fish, and some meat, seems to be the best diet for the Chinese children.

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The problems of social-economics, culture, politics, and health, among those, are factors that influence both directly and indirectly the style of life of hundreds of thousands of people, due to the lack of economic resources, unemployment, poverty, their own culture can lead to a more serious state of health, consequently causing problems of their nutritional state, such as obesity in its varying degrees of malnutrition, in addition to the presence of preventable illnesses such as acute respiratory disease (IRA), that seriously affect the infant population. Factors, consequences, everything becomes one vicious circle that can be broken thereby preventing more deaths that could be averted with time. Faced with this situation, in general, alarming people, the need to conduct an investigation is imposed in the field, in social awareness of the turning point that rural areas are faced with, in my case the rural area of the province of Imbabura, taking rural communities belonging to the three predominant ethnicities in our province, which are Indigenous, Black, and Mixed-Race. A realistic study of these areas safely projected confidant results, since its base will be the taking of anthropometric measurements (weight-height) with children under the age of 5, surveys about the presence of IRA in mothers of these children, with the purpose of subsequently establishing a relation between the nutritional state, IIRA, ethnicity of the study population. I hope that this work and its results are constituted as an element and factor of change towards the welfare of these sectors, those in need and vulnerable, it is clear, in collaboration with government organization, health team, and over all the community participation, with the sole purpose of improving this situation and of achieving a better development of these sectors and of the country in general.

A 60-item food sort patterned after a game used in anthropological studies was developed to measure food intake of 19 preschool children attending a day care center in Southwest Virginia. Response agreement was determined by administering the game twice to children one month apart, followed by phone interviews with parents, school menu review and teacher interview to confirm child response. Most three-year-olds completed only 20 out of 60 items; nine four- to five-year-olds were able to complete all 60. Children were fairly consistent in response over a month's time, with rough agreements 80 percent or higher for almost half the group; rough parent-child agreements were also reasonably good, with more than half scoring 75 percent or higher and none scoring below 60 percent. Dietary assessment was only possible to a limited degree, but food group frequency scores revealed children's estimates of their own intake to be considerably higher than those of parents. While reliability of children as primary sources of dietary data is suggested, further study is needed before true validity and reliability of the instrument can be established. / M.S.

A 21-day metabolic balance study was designed to test the hypothesis that dietary zinc level affects protein utilization in growing children. Subjects' mean age was 8 years 5 months, mean weight was 29.5 kg, and mean height was 132.1 cm. The subjects were divided on the basis of weight into four treatment groups following a 2x2 factorial experimental design. After an eight day adjustment period in which all subjects consumed a mixed diet known to contain 28.8 g protein, 5.5 mg zinc, and 2,000 Kcal, the four treatments were administered for 12 days. One group was supplemented with the essential amino acids found by analysis to be most limiting with respect to whole egg protein. Threonine, valine, methionine, isoleucine, and lysine were added in amounts to reach a chemical score of 80 based on whole egg protein. The sources and amounts of nitrogen were: food, 4.18 and supplements, 0.14 g/day. One group received these same amino acids plus a zinc supplement of 5.0 mg/day. One group received an isonitrogenous amount of ammonium citrate matching the nitrogen contained in the amino acids supplement. The last group received the isonitrogenous amount of ammonium citrate plus 5.0 mg zinc. All supplements were given daily and were incorporated into meals. All urinary and fecal excretions were collected and analyzed for nitrogen and zinc. Nitrogen analysis was accomplished using a modified Kjeldahl-Gunning-Arnold method and zinc was determined spectrophotometrically on wet-ashed samples. Nitrogen retentions for the four groups were: amino acids plus zinc, 1.00; amino acids, 1.01; ammonium citrate, 0.90; and ammonium citrate plus zinc, 0.81 g/day. Analysis of variance on the balance data from the four groups showed no effect of zinc, added essential amino acids or the interaction of the two on the nitrogen balance of the subjects, although the trends of retention favored amino acids. There was a significant effect (p<.01) of added zinc on zinc balance, however. It was concluded that zinc did not affect nitrogen utilization in the growing child, but that zinc balance is affected by zinc quantity in the diet. The present Recommended Dietary Allowance of 10 mg zinc/day for this age group is the minimum necessary to maintain positive zinc balance. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this investigation was to study and compare the influences of cafeteria and family style methods of service upon the acceptance of ten foods at the noon meal by pre-school children as measured by the consumption of those foods. Each experimental period lasted for eight and one-half weeks. Subjects were 12 children, six girls and six boys, who were enrolled in the University Nursery School at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia during the 1964-65 academic year. With the exception of ten foods, five each experimental period, menus used with both methods of service were the same. Daily records were kept of the sizes of servings and number of second servings of the specific foods chosen by each child. Records of the child's comments and of the teacher's observations of each child in relation to those foods were also kept. Results of the data collected revealed that the subjects in general took and consumed more food with the cafeteria style than they did with the family style method of service. The number of second servings was greater with foods served by cafeteria style. / Master of Science

It is believed that one of the best ways to study the personality adequacy of children is through their behavior in situations. / Master of Science