\n The research, part of the Born in Bradford Age of Wonder project, surveyed more than 13,000 young people aged 12 to 15 to understand their diets.\n<\/p>\n
\n Only 39 per cent of teenagers reported eating breakfast daily, with the figure dropping from 44 per cent among 12 to 13-year-olds to 36 per cent for 14 to 15-year-olds.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dr David Ryan, research fellow at Born in Bradford, said: “When over a third of teenagers are drinking energy drinks and more than half are having sugary drinks each week, and when those drinks can carry real social currency, this is no longer just a nutrition issue.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It\u2019s a public health issue.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We need stronger policies alongside education to address the pressures driving their popularity.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Without coordinated action, we risk normalising habits that could harm young people\u2019s health in the long term.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The study also found a widening gender gap, with 29 per cent of girls skipping breakfast compared to 16 per cent of boys.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fruit and vegetable consumption also fell short of government recommendations, which advise five portions per day.\n<\/p>\n
\n Just 19 per cent of teenagers ate two or more portions of fruit daily, and only 20 per cent reached the same threshold for vegetables.\n<\/p>\n
\n Additionally, 36 per cent of young people reported consuming energy drinks at least once a week – above national estimates, which range from 3 to 32 per cent.\n<\/p>\n
\n Qualitative interviews revealed that peer influence promotes these drinks.\n<\/p>\n
\n A 13-year-old female participant said: “Influencers showing how it’s such a good drink and everything\u2026 people see it and then they try it, and then their friends see it and then they want to try it, and it’s just like a cycle.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Tim Howells, head of public health at Bradford Council, said: “In Bradford district, we keep rolling out our healthy schools programme \u2018Living Well schools\u2019 which, among other initiatives, supports schools with food nutrition and a new circular food growing project through the #GrowWelltoEatWell campaign.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We are also working alongside the York University \u2018Fix Our Food\u2019 team to improve school food menus, and with increasing uptake of Free School Meals.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The latter of which has led to the increased uptake of 2,733 families into Free School Meals, which is an additional \u00a32 million investment into schools thanks to the Pupil Premium investment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The research, part of the Born in Bradford Age of Wonder project, surveyed more than 13,000 young people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134,111,139,556,69],"class_list":["post-373569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}