Essay On Social Factors Affecting Food Selection

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Physiological: the physiological factor affects the body’s craving (appetite) and need for food (hunger). The body relies on a certain amount of food to function and be healthy. This differs from person to person based on; age, gender, build, activity level, and health. Teenagers quite often go for foods that satisfy them rather than what their body actorly needs.
Nutritional requirements mean the number of vitamins and minerals the body needs to stay healthy. Since adolescents are still developing they require a higher calcium and protein intake for bone and tissue growth and carbs for energy. When females get their menstrual cycle, they need more iron to account for the blood loss during that time. Males require more zinc to protect their …show more content…

One of the reasons why social factors has a significant influence on adolescent’s is because their attitudes and habits relating to food usually develop through the interaction with their peers, friends and families. Social factors that have a great impact on the food selection of adolescents are the media, and their peers.
Peer influences: a peer is a person who has the same social status and is around the same age as another person. The influence of peers is the greatest in adolescence. The reason for this is because like fashion, trends come and go in the food industry. For adolescents being cool is and being accepted amongst their peers is vital, so they usually follow the food trends that most of the group follow for that sake. Although this causes them to disregard their parents influence on what they should and should not eat. In todays society teenagers are influenced by their peers to eat at popular fast food outlets such as MacDonald’s, since it’s a popular food trend amongst them. This affects them in a negative way since the food that is sold at theses outlets can have poor nutritional values. This causes an increase in diet related diseases in teenagers such as type 2

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