My research and data 2

During my project, I also asked various teenagers to fill in a food diary carried out over three days, along with a questionnaire that asked them about what a healthy diet consisted of. 

I cannot publish any exact results on here due to confidentiality, yet i have constructed a summary of what I found out from this research.

I found out that teenagers ( ages 15-17) had a really clear concept of what they should be eating every day, yet their actual daily diet did not reflect this at all. All of their ideas on what they should be eating came from magazines, articles they had read, and information that had been fed to them by the television and the internet. 

Below is an example extracted from my results of what a teenager thought they should be eating and their actual daily diet:

WHAT THEY THOUGHT THEIR DIET SHOULD BE:

BREAKFAST : Porridge, sprinkled with muesli and blueberries with orange juice or tea

LUNCH: Chicken/tuna salad with lots of vegetables 

DINNER: Steamed fish or chicken with vegetables 

SNACKS: pitta bread, apples, yoghurts

WHAT THEIR DIET ACTUALLY CONSISTED OF:

BREAKFAST: occasionally skipped or cereal ( favourites: crunchy nut, shreddies,cornflakes)

LUNCH: one chocolate cookie 

DINNER: family meal ( usually pasta, lasagne,roast dinner)

SNACKS: yoghurt, Doritios, chocolate bar, orange

Over all I was shocked to find out what teenagers actually ate in a day, and was alarmed to find that many skipped breakfast and then ate something at eleven o'clock which was usually a pizza slice, or a high calorie sugar snack such as a cookie or a flapjack. 
What was even worse was that these were served by the school canteen and where the most popular food choices.

• It is clear that teenagers know what they should be eating, but due to factors such as time and difficulty accessing the food ( for example one student stated that it is easier to just pick a cookie and go rather than sit down, pick up a knife and fork and choose items from the salad bar)  they find it harder to chose the right item to eat. 

• Cost is also a huge factor, as a lot of the girls said that often a salad or a healthy option such as sushi is often far more expensive than a cheese sandwhich in places like boots and especially in chains such as costa and starbucks, where their sandwiches can be as expensive as £4.00, meaning teenagers often just guy a packet of crips and a chocolate bar for as little as £2.00, or even head to Mcdonalds where happy meals can be as cheap as £2.19. 

Something is definitely wrong with the pricing on healthy food compared to junk food. If junk food is more accessible and cheaper than the healthy food we are constantly nagged to eat, then clearly this is a problem needed to be addressed more seriously ?