Soft drink consumption among grade 11 and grade 12 learners at a secondary school in Gauteng, South Africa

Abstract

Background: Over the last few decades, soft drink consumption has been steadily increasing especially at an alarming rate among adolescents. Soft drinks have been associated with positive energy intake. An unhealthy diet along with a lack of physical activity is a major risk factor for health problems like overweight and obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Children and adolescents are becoming very susceptible to the development of NCDs due to an increase in consumption of heavily processed and highly caloric foods, leading to early onset of morbidity. Aim of the study: To investigate soft drink consumption among grade 11 and 12 learners at a secondary school in Gauteng, South Africa Methods: A quantitative descriptive survey was conducted among 382 learners (grade 11 and 12) of Liverpool secondary school. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. STATA version 10 was used for data entry and analysis. Results: All learners who participated in the survey reported that they consumed soft drinks over the past 12 months. Out of the 382 learners, only 55 (14.4%) were non-frequent consumers. Carbonated drinks were the most commonly consumed (73.6%). Factors such as frequent snacking (p=0.042), frequent fast food consumption (p=0.001) and easy availability of soft drinks (p=0.00) positively influenced the consumption of soft drinks. Over 55% of the learners had very poor knowledge about the health effects caused by increased consumption of soft drinks. Conclusion: In line with the high consumption of soft drinks, the level of awareness of the health effects of these unhealthy dietary practices among the learners in this study is very poor. Interventions to improve good or healthy dietary habits have to be started both at the home and school level.