Application of Statistics in Real-world Psychological Problems
Introduction
This review summarizes the findings of a scientific study that looks at how personal and environmental factors play a role in eating behavior. This study is important because the findings can provide valuable insights into adolescent health through study of eating behavior and the conditions that influence it. The study investigated the relationship between residential area including rural and urban, self-directed approaches as well as eating behaviors in adolescent s and children of nine nations such as the Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Romania, Germany, and Belgium. There were 11,820 young people who participated in the study. The average age of the young people is 13.3 years. Participants were told to answer the questionnaire survey.
The data was collected under the TEMPEST (Temptations to Eat Moderated by Personal and Environmental Self-regulatory Tools) project that is operated by the European Union (Gaspar et al, 2014). The countries selected above correspond to a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and overweight occurrence. The schools from where data was collected, was selected from both urban and rural regions, after stratification, on a convenience basis. In each school the classes were chosen randomly. There were in total 123 schools that participated in this program. The questionnaire measured socio-demographic variables, eating consciousness and care, use of self-directed approaches, perception of intervention, and environmental variables be it at home or even outside of home. These are usually social influence of parents or people around such as friends).
Eating self-directed approaches were evaluated with TESQ-E, a tool developed by the TEMPEST program. This is a validated instrument consists of 24 items that assesses nutritional self-directed approaches among young people. Respondents rated a Likert scale consists of five points with 1 representing never and 5 signifying always, how frequently the respondents used certain self-directed approaches from the following three groups. The 1st group encompasses approaches for directly evaluating the food environment. This likewise encompasses questions that describe temptation control as well as temptation aversion (Cronbach’s alpha which is equal to 0.83). On the other hand, the second group consists of approaches for altering the significance of the environment for food, and encompasses questions elucidating suppression and distraction (Cronbach’s alpha which is equal to 0.86). Lastly, the third category includes techniques for responding to the objective of eating healthy and made up of items that describe the objective as well as goal deliberation and rule setting (Cronbach’s alpha which is equal to 0.86). Every category includes two approaches which were evaluated with four items each. Then a mean score was calculated. Cronbach’s α (alpha) is a coefficient of internal consistency. It is generally used as an estimate of the dependability of a psychometric test for a sample of subjects. The theoretical value of alpha varies from 0 to 1. Higher values of alpha are ideal, as they indicate more reliability. As a rule of thumb, a reliability of 0.70 or higher (with a substantial sample size) is considered adequate. Scores given on each of the three groups were considerably correlated with a range of 0.66– 0.73, p< 0.001.
Eating consciousness and care was gauged using the eight points and the respondents were told to answer statements concerning the extent to which they are in agreement or disagreement. The response scale was 1 for completely disagreeing to 5 for totally agreeing. The points were considerably correlated with a range of 0.20–0.67, and p < 0.001) along with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.79.
Four questions pertaining to behavior in eating were utilized. Each question was asked to the respondents pertaining to how many snacks, fruits soft drinks, and vegetables they consume per day. Range of answers offered were from “less than 1” to “more than 4.”
Results and discussion
Eating behavior of urban and rural students was significantly different. Students from urban areas showed poor eating behavior. They drank greater quantity of soft drinks. Further they also ate more snacks. Whereas, urban schools’ students demonstrated greater eating consciousness and as compared to rural schools’ students. Students that hail from rural areas indicate eating greater amount of vegetables and having more self-directed approaches in all the three aspects. No significant statistical differences were found between rural and urban settings regarding fruit intake.
Regression model (which explained explaining 20.2% variance) was run through the use of composite index “Eating behavior and consciousness and care” as the research’s dependent variable and urban and rural setting, age, gender as well as the 3 approaches related to self-directed, as the independent variables. Variables were related to Eating consciousness and care excluding “Change Meaning of Temptation.” The strongest relationship was seen between age and “Actions towards goals.” Separate regression analyses for each country was also carried out. This analysis shows that Poland had a significant relationship between eating consciousness and gender; that girls were more self-regulated. Nowhere else but in Portugal and Romania pupils residing in rural areas have greater eating consciousness and care. Portugal, Romania and Poland, unlike other countries show relation between urban and rural settings and eating consciousness and care.
References
Gaspar, T., Matos, M. G., Luszczynska, A., Baban, A., & Wit, J. (2014). The impact of a rural or urban context in eating awareness and self‐regulation approaches in children and young people from eight European countries. International Journal of Psychology, 49(3), 158-166.
