Socially Constituted Food Consumption of Adolescents: the Retail Environment

Energy-dense high-fat foods and sugared beverages have become meal replacements for many adolescents in the United States where 30 percent of all adolescents are overweight. Apart from availability and access to these products on school premises, their consumption is socially reinforced at fast food restaurants and convenience stores where adolescents routinely congregate. Such consumption represents an indispensable part of many adolescents’ “grab-and-go” lifestyle that is reinforced by aggressive promotion from the food and food-service industry. As a part of a multi-stage research project, this ethnographic study investigates the effect that various in-store promotions used by retail outlets have on adolescents’ actual food purchases.

Citation:

Tim Burkink (2006) ,"Socially Constituted Food Consumption of Adolescents: the Retail Environment", in AP - Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7, eds. Margaret Craig Lees, Teresa Davis, and Gary Gregory, Sydney, Australia : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 34-34.