Exploring Influences of Eating Behaviors Among Emerging Adults in the Military

Objective: Identify factors influencing eating behaviors among emerging adults in the military. Design: Focused ethnography using interviews, observations, and artifacts for data. Setting: Three US Naval installations. Participants: Thirty-two active-duty Sailors aged 18–25 years. Analysis: Qualitative data were organized in NVivo and analyzed sequentially to categorize culturally relevant domains and themes using a social ecological model (SEM). Descriptive statistics were used to describe questionnaire data in SPSS (version 27.0, IBM, 2020). Results: Leaders encouraged healthy eating through policies and messages, but cultural contradictions and environmental barriers undermined Sailors' efforts to eat healthily. Stress and resource constraints (intrapersonal), peer pressure (social), unhealthy food environments and lack of access to food preparation (environmental), and eating on the go because of mission-first norms (cultural) promoted unhealthy eating behaviors. Nutrition and culinary literacy (intrapersonal); peer support and leadership engagement (social); access to healthy, convenient, and low-cost foods (environmental); and indoctrination to healthy eating during recruit training (cultural) positively influenced eating behaviors. Conclusion and Implications: The eating behaviors of service members are influenced by many modifiable factors. Targeted education, leadership engagement, and policies that make nutritious foods easily accessible, appealing, and preferred are needed.