Teenagers often make poor choices in all aspects of life, and because of that, it becomes the responsibility of the adult population to guide them – as best we can – toward better decisions.

That “as best we can” part of the equation often depends on the best information and experiences available, and it is along those lines that a University of Kentucky researcher will be working with a group in Clinton County to study the current eating habits of the teenage population.

Alison Gustafson, who will conduct the study, is hoping the end result of the study will be an improved level of overall health and well-being of the participants.

Gustafson will be in Albany next week to meet with Christy Nuetzman, Clinton County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences, and other individuals about the program and to determine a local plan of implementation.

Nuetzman said that next week’s meeting will also include Clinton County Schools Superintendent Charlotte Bernard.

Nuetzman explained that while the study isn’t a direct grant activity of a recent grant from the Center for Disease Control, it was an indirect result of the contacts she has made because of work with Plate It Up Kentucky Proud sampling and Shop Fresh Shop Local.

“Teens are a huge influence on one another and on their families,” Nuetzman said. “This grant will allow us to enhance our educational programming with teens specifically in regards to their eating habits and shopping behaviors. Students will be surveyed and then participate in educational sessions talking about food shopping habits.”

The study is being funded with a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Gustafson will study the food purchasing patterns of teens in rural areas of Kentucky and North Carolina. The end result will hopefully be improved overall health and well-being of the participants.

Clinton County is one of four Kentucky counties involved in the study, which also includes Knox, Magoffin and Greenup counties. Three counties in North Carolina will be involved in the study.

“Teens purchase quite a bit of food themselves,” said Gustafson, an assistant professor in the UK Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. “They also have a huge influence on the foods that their parents purchase.”

Recently, there has been a push from a host of entities to raise the level of health awareness across Kentucky and in particular, raise awareness of the problems that the population faces in regards to diabetes, smoking, sedentary lifestyles and obesity – among adults certainly, but most importantly among children and teenagers, with the thought of preventing the development of bad habits before excessive damage to the health of young people occurs.

According to the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 18 percent of Kentucky high-schoolers and 12.5 percent of high school students in North Carolina were obese in 2013.

Gustafson will work with 14 and 15 year-old students during the four-year long study.

“Research has shown that this age range is a critical time point when behaviors start to shift,” Gustafson said. “While the majority of the participants aren’t able to drive, they have access to a large quantity of food both at school and in their community, and they are heavily influenced by their peers.”

Gustafson will gather information about the availability of foods in participants’ homes, schools and communities, their shopping patterns and group of friends. She will then work with local family and consumer sciences extension agents to develop and implement a curriculum based on the teens’ social networks and environments.

The curriculum will emphasize eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking more water and consuming fewer sugar-sweetened beverages. Teens will learn to choose healthier foods when out with friends, to select healthier foods based on their neighborhood, to choose food venues that offer healthier foods, and to encourage fruit and vegetable consumption at home.

Nuetzman added that this study and its findings will hopefully produce a solution to fill a void in the way other implementations have addressed behavior changes in younger children and elementary aged children, but have not addressed the teen population as well.

“It’s a great opportunity for our community. We know that we need to change dietary behaviors at an early age to reduce obesity and chronic health conditions,” Nuetzman said. “We have programs in place to address early childhood and elementary food choices and now we will have a great resource for impacting eating and spending habits of teens.”

Nuetzman added that when an opportunity arises to better address ways to offer healthier lifestyle choices to the Clinton County population, she is glad to jump aboard.

“It’s exciting to be a part of new opportunities like this for our students and families,” she said.