Predictors of intentions to eat healthily in 8-9-year-old children.

One thousand two hundred seventy-two French children aged 8-9 years old participated in a study aimed at identifying predictors of healthy eating intention. We used a survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Regression analyses were performed to assess the extent to which the extended TPB variables explained intention to eat healthily. The results indicated that attitude, parental norms, friend's norms, knowledge, motivation to conform to friends' and parental norms and perceived behavioral control accounted for 35% of the variance of intention to eat healthily. The most important predictor in this study was perceived as behavioral control.