A socio-cognitive view of breakfast eating in Institutional workplace settings

This research aims to understand breakfast eating behaviours for people who work within workplace institutions where breakfast alternatives are available for staff utilisation. A nutritious diet (including breakfast) is fundamentally important to provide the energy and nutrients needed to meet the physical and mental demands of a workday. However, many people skip breakfast in the broader population and for people who have access to breakfasts within their workplace institutions. This research will explore how breakfast frequency may potentially be changed through the application of social marketing. To examine this issue of breakfast skipping, a literature review was undertaken on breakfast skipping, the associated risks and factors that may contribute to increasing breakfast eating. The review looked at how breakfast skipping can affect cognitive processes in children and adolescents (where most of the interventions and testing were completed). The literature review noted other factors linked with breakfast skipping, including unhealthy eating, which contributes to unhealthy weight and obesity. Furthermore, the literature review confirmed that studies had been conducted in workplace institutional settings, namely in a military context, to increase healthy eating (bread, fruits, vegetables). However, these studies did not focus on understanding how to increase breakfast consumption. Three studies were conducted to inform future work within this area and provide social marketing strategies to increase breakfast frequency within workplace institutions. All studies were driven by a theoretical model (Social Cognitive Theory; SCT). Study 1 is a systematic narrative review, which reviewed breakfast eating interventions over a 20-year period. The systematic review was utilised to understand what interventions have previously worked to encourage breakfast eating. Study 2 involved semi-structured one-on-one interviews of military personnel (n=12) and miners (n=12) to under
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Dept of Marketing
Griffith Business School
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