Adolescents’ influence in family meal decisions

We analyzed the antecedents of adolescents’ influence in family meal decisions, with a focus on fish. The results are based on a representative sample of about 1000 Norwegian schoolchildren between the age of 13 and 18 (adolescents). Fish is a mainstay of Norwegian diets ensuring high familiarity and divergent preferences between persons and among household members. Structural equation modelling was used to test how different individual and social variables influence two different assessments of perceived influence: absolute and relative influence. The findings showed that adolescents’ motivation (involvement and reward), family communication patterns, social norms and parent preferences affect adolescents’ participation in family decisions concerning fish as a main meal. Helping behaviour had no significant effect on perceived influence. Most of the results (12 of 14 relationships) are consistent with respect to both absolute and relative measures of perceived influence in family meal decisions.