Reading texts

Group 6: Nguyen Thi Hien

Le Thu Huong
Ly Thi Ngoc Mai
Nguyen Thi Tham

1. Family Process and Peer Influences on Substance Use by Adolescents (Published:

Aug 27, 2013)

Author: Alice Yuen Loke and Yim-wah Mak

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3799532/

Using tobacco and drinking alcohol are leading causes of many preventable diseases.
Family processes and the influence of friends will influence engagement in such behavior
during adolescence, making adolescents susceptible to health risks later in life.

Familial influences are seen as important factors in the development of adolescents.

Children look up to their parents as role models; therefore, smoking on the part of parents
and siblings will be regarded by children as acceptable behavior, which they are likely to
emulate. The ready availability of cigarettes at home also encourages teenagers to try
smoking, which could lead to the development of this risky behavior. Parents and siblings,
being the first persons that children interact with, exert immense influence on children’s
behaviors by acting as role models. Recognizing the negative role that they may play on the
development of behavior among their children or younger siblings that could be harmful to
their health, family members who smoke should be encouraged to quit.

Besides serving as role models, parents also provide support and control to guide their
children in the course of their development. The quality of the parent-child relationship is
another factor influencing the development of risky behavior. A poor parent-child
relationship, as reflected by less time spent in activities together and increased conflict with
parents, is a factor contributing to engagement in risky behavior. Parenting with warmth,
love, care, acceptance, respect, reason, and the appropriate level of monitoring will
encourage positive psychosocial development in children. Neither an authoritarian (low
support but high control) nor a permissive (high support but low control) parenting style is
seen as ideal, as shown in this study. High support without an appropriate level of control or
vice versa could contribute to engagement in risky behavior by adolescents, such as
smoking and drinking.

As adolescents begin to socialize with friends, the role of peers becomes important. Friends
of smokers are far more likely to transition to tobacco use/drinking than friends of
non-smokers/non-drinkers. In this study, the smoking and drinking habits of friends were
important predictors of the uptake by adolescents of such behaviors. Having a friend who
smokes will increase the odds that an adolescent will smoke by 5.45 times, rising to 10.46
times when the adolescent is invited by a friend to smoke. Having a friend who drinks will
increase the odds that an adolescent will drink by 1.89 times, increasing to 11.825 times
when invited by a friend to drink.

In this study, the smoking status of family members, parent-child conflicts, parenting styles,
and the influence of friends were all found to correlate with the development of smoking
and drinking among adolescents. This information is valuable for planning programs for the
prevention and cessation of risky behavior among adolescents.

Word count: 480

2. Children’s snack consumption: role of parents, peers and child snack-purchasing

behaviour. ( Published: 04 June, 2015)

Author: Wilke J.C. van Ansem, Carola T.M. Schrijvers, Gerda Rodenburg, Dike van de
Mheen

In many affluent countries, the prevalence of childhood obesity is both high and
rising. Nevertheless, there are indications of stabilization of the overweight/obesity trends
in some subsamples of adolescents in France, Ireland and Sweden, and also in children aged
2–10 years in the Netherlands. However, obesity in childhood is associated with various
physical and psychosocial problems, not just in childhood, but also beyond. Furthermore,
childhood obesity tracks into adulthood.
Energy-dense snacks are often high in fat and sugars and low in nutrients, and therefore
considered unhealthy. Moreover, it has been reported that more frequent consumption of
energy-dense snacks is associated with higher total energy intake and a higher proportion of
total energy in the diet which is provided by sugars. Not only has an increase in children’s
snacking behaviour been reported, dietary behaviour established in childhood also track into
adulthood. To develop interventions and policy to improve children’s dietary behaviour, it
is important to gain greater insight into the determinants of their unhealthy dietary
behaviour, including unhealthy snack consumption.

The home environment is reported to be an important determinant of children’s dietary

behaviour. Because parents can act as role models, set food rules and determine which
foods are available at home, they influence children’s eating habits. Although most studies
on parental factors and children’s dietary behaviour focussed on fruit and vegetable intake,
some have also shown parental factors to be associated with children’s unhealthy snacking
behaviour. For example, children’s snack consumption is associated with the home
availability of snacks: when snacks were available at home, children consumed more snacks.
Among boys, it was also found that a lack of food rules was associated with a higher intake
of fat.

As well as parental influence, other elements in the social environment play a role in
children’s dietary behaviour. As children grow older, they spend more time with their peers,
who can also influence their dietary behaviour. A recent review concluded that school
friendships may be critical to shaping eating behaviour and body weight: e.g. the risk of
becoming overweight was higher in children whose friends were overweight. Similarly, a
positive association was found between individual and peer snack consumption: adolescents
whose friends consumed many snacks ate more snacks themselves than those whose friends
ate few snacks.

As children age—and possibly receive pocket money—they gain more autonomy and
decision-making power with regard to dietary behaviour. However, little is known about the
role of economic factors (such as pocket money) on their dietary behaviour. It is generally
assumed that parents make decisions that are influenced by economic determinants,
although they leave some of these decisions to their children, e.g. by providing pocket
money which their children can spend on items of their own choice.[…] Although there is
very little literature on the role of pocket money as a determinant of children’s dietary
behaviour, a study by Jensen et al. found that children who rarely spend their pocket money
on soft drinks have lower soft drink consumption than children who more frequently spend
their pocket money on soft drinks. Similarly, two experimental studies found that peers
influence children’s food-purchasing behaviour.

The influence of parents and peers on children’s dietary behaviour will depend on the
child’s age and life stage. Although parental influence on children probably decreases in the
transition from childhood to adolescence, peer influence tends to become more important,
not just generally, but also regarding dietary behaviour.

Word count: 568

Source:
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/25/6/1006/2467448?fbclid=IwAR2Rvb0ubriUKX
UyqO-YyUyDQRr0R_oYAxQkdUOnZVjhduAffwf6_YjeQ1g
3. Young people, alcohol and influences (Published: June, 2011)

Author: Pamela Bremner, Jamie Burnett, Fay Nunney, Mohammed Ravat, Dr Willm Mistral

This research shows that parental influence is of paramount importance. The findings
suggest that efforts to improve drinking behaviour among young people are best directed at
supporting and educating parents. The government’s approach should build on the evidence
from this research, highlighting that parents are the key partners in preventing alcohol harm
to their child. This approach should include positive messages for parents about how they
can influence their child’s behaviour. This could also include how and when parents can
introduce their child to alcohol, practical steps that parents can take at times when their
child’s drinking and exposure to alcohol is likely to increase and should stress the
importance of parents’ own drinking behaviours and how they are observed or perceived by
their children. Messages reinforcing the importance of parents’ behaviour and supervision
will need to be farreaching and designed to be effective with the majority of families, as
well as targeted to meet the needs of the minority of more complex families.
The influence of peer group behaviour – both real and perceived – on negative drinking
behaviours by young people is another key area for influence. This research shows that the
drinking behaviour of friends is among the strongest predictors of having had an alcoholic
drink and of excessive drinking, whilst a young person’s perception of social norms around
drinking is a key predictor for those currently drinking. In terms of possible interventions in
this area, the EU Drug Abuse Prevention research programme demonstrates that adopting a
social norms approach to education about alcohol in schools can positively impact young
people’s drinking behaviour by challenging incorrect perceptions about the regularity and
scale of heavy drinking by their peer group (Faggiano, et al., 2008). In addition, schools
could provide a channel for information, offering the opportunity for getting targeted
messages to parents to encourage actions at specific times in their child’s development. This
would echo an approach in the new drug strategy that commits to ’good quality education
and advice so that young people and their parents are provided with credible information to
actively resist substance misuse‘ (HM Government, 2010, p9). Guidance for schools on
preventing drug and alcohol misuse is currently being revised and simplified. This offers an
opportunity to embed messages from this research about the importance of a social norms
approach and the impact of messages to parents.

Access to alcohol is important. This research suggests that the easier it is for young people
to get hold of alcohol, the greater the potential risk they face. Messages to parents will need
to emphasise that the most common place for alcohol to be accessed is in the home,
showing that how they store alcohol and, critically, how they monitor its use, are important.
Those young people who do buy their own alcohol are the ones most likely to be harmful
drinkers. This finding has implications for the retailing of alcohol. Controlling the price of
alcohol has a growing evidence base, which demonstrates that a minimum unit price of 50
pence per unit could prevent harm among young people by reducing its availability
(Faggiano, et al., 2008).[…]

Word count: 520

Source:
https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/young-people-alcoh
ol-full.pdf