Abstract:

According to the recent statistical data, in the Republic of Croatia, 11% of children and young people are obese, half of which are between the ages of 7 and 14. Although they spend between one and three hours a day on various online activities, it has been noted that the media literacy skills of Croatian girls and boys are poorly developed, while 73% of children never or seldom search for online health information. This pilot study aims to examine the link between available media information on healthy diets and on the reception by primary school children aged 11 to 14 years, regarding the development of their dietary habits. For this purpose, a mixed-methods research design was applied. It combines data from a face-to-face survey on the convenience sample of higher-grade students of the elementary school (N = 48), an ethnographic survey (participatory observation) on a convenience sample of majorette club members (N = 15), and simple content analysis on a sample of cover posts (N = 3.234) of two popular Croatian teen portals during 30 months (2018-2020). The results indicate that children mostly associate their consumer and dietary habits with the media content they access, in a way that the media influences both the purchase and the consumption of unhealthy food items. At the same time, youth-oriented media channels lack informational and educational content aiming at the adoption of various healthy lifestyle habits. The obtained results could be used as indicators for further research on the general population. If the findings are confirmed in further research, urgent social intervention aiming to develop critical thinking skills and healthy lifestyle habits in children and young people is needed. Such a goal is based on the needed support of all responsible persons in the social sphere, as to affect the policies practiced by the digital media.

Keywords:

Children and youth, digital health literacy, critical evaluation, children's dietary habits, teen portals.