Health Education Research

By: Hanna Marie Benamira

J Shepherd, A Harden, R Rees, G Brunton, J Garcia, S Oliver, A Oakley, Young people and healthy eating: a systematic review of research on barriers and facilitators, Health Education Research, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1 January 2006, Pages 239–257.

The research, Young people and healthy eating: a systematic review of research on barriers and facilitators by J Shepherd, A Harden, R Rees, G Brunton, J Garcia, S Oliver, A Oakley, was conducted to examine the barriers to, and facilitators of, healthy eating among young people (11–16 years).

The aim of this paper is to know and review about the obstacles to have a healthy eating among young people. The research showed that there are improvements in knowledge and increase in healthy eating but there  are differences when it comes to the gender. The author also stated the obstacles to healthy eating which include the poor school meal provision, relative cheapness and personal taste preferences for fast food. The methodology that was used to conduct the study is a systematic mapping. Strict evaluation is required just to assess the effectiveness of increasing the availability of affordable healthy food in the public and private spaces occupied by young people.

The author/s let us identify the negative effects of not having a healthy food intake in the body and if there are people who will going to take action then, there are no longer young people will have a not healthy body.

The research was good because it allows us to know that there are negative effects in the health growth and cognitive development. The author/s influenced us that the negative effects of not having a healthy food intake will result to more problems in the future. To such a complicated issue the author/s sums up well by saying the things that will happen if this unhealthy food intake by young people continues. So ultimately there’s no reason for us to disregard this issue and take action even if were just a simple person. The author recommended that we can help poor young people to intake a healthy food and that is to provide a healthy food that  they can afford but, the thing is this paper does not translate easily to our everyday life because we also need to make a living for our own. Well, it appear as a concrete guideline for the people who really wants to help and do have a lot of money to provide the things that is needed to help poor young people.

Over all, the author/s does clearly stated the negative effects of unhealthy intake of food by the young people so they recommended that we also need to provide healthy foods that the poor young people can afford so that they can intake healthy foods too. The piece was very relevant discussed with and it is very convincing in theory and it is very straight to the point when approaching with the complex problem.