Friends and Family: How African-American Adolescents' Perceptions of Dietary Beliefs and Behaviors of Others Relate to Diet Quality.

Background: Adolescents' dietary intake often fails to meet national dietary guidelines, especially among low-income African-American youth. The dietary habits established in adolescence are likely to continue into adulthood, and a poor-quality diet increases the risk of developing obesity and chronic disease. Based on principles from ecological and social-cognitive behavior change health theories, perceptions of parental beliefs about healthy eating, perceptions of peer eating behaviors, and parental monitoring of what adolescents eat may positively influence adolescent diet quality.

Comparison of the HEI and HEI-2010 Diet Quality Measures in Association with Chronic Disease Risk among Low-Income, African American Urban Youth in Baltimore, Maryland.

Objective: Overall diet patterns may be a better predictor of disease risk than specific nutrients or individual foods. The purpose of this study is to examine how overall diet patterns relate to nutritional intake, body composition, and physiological measures of chronic disease risk among low-income, urban African American adolescents.

Methods: Cross-sectional data were collected from two samples of African American adolescents (n = 317) from a low-income urban community, including dietary intake using the food frequency Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire and anthropometric measures.

The healthy eating index and youth healthy eating index are unique, nonredundant measures of diet quality among low-income, African American adolescents.

Chronic disease is related to poor diet quality. The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) was developed to assess diet quality. The Youth HEI (YHEI) is an adaptation of the HEI for use with children and adolescents.