Why do our children eat garbage - determinants of eating behavior

Abstract

Many factors influence children's food choices, including media, social pressure, personal taste preferences, and marketing strategies of food-producing companies. In this article, I emphasize the psychological aspects of this phenomenon. By junk food, I mean primarily fast-food products, low nutritional value, high calories, highly processed, and ready for quick consumption. The direct inspiration for writing this text was the Supreme Audit Office's report on the inspection of health care for children and adolescents and reports indicating a decline in the physical fitness of school-age children. I distinguished six categories, four main ones: “food is pleasure”, “emotional eating”, “food
is love”, “the magic of place” and two additional ones: “peer influences” and “parental influences”.