Crystal Smit

An Integrated Model 3 63 intrinsic motivation were adjusted to the age group and the various consumption behaviors, but were not validated here; however, they were based on validated studies (Ryan & Connell, 1989; Vansteenkiste et al., 2013), showed good reliability, and the age- and behavior-specific questions are expected to have increased their construct validity. Nevertheless, future research should confirm this assumption and validate the adjusted measures. In conclusion, the findings of this study highlight the importance of young adolescents’ intrinsicmotivation forpredictingchanges in fruit, vegetable, andwater consumption. Young adolescents who were intrinsically motivated to consume fruit, vegetables, and drink water were more likely to change their consumption behavior. In addition, the descriptive norms of parents predicted changes in young adolescents’ water consumption. Young adolescents who perceived that their parents consumed water often were themselves more likely to drink water. A challenge for future research would be to examine how intrinsic motivation can be incorporated in interventions targeting fruit, vegetable, and water consumption. Intervention developers could test whether incorporating intrinsic motivation, (e.g., by creating an environment that supports the intrinsic motivation of targeted individuals by providing them with rationales for the behavior and supporting their need for autonomy), leads to increased consumption of fruit, vegetables, and water (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Sebire, Edwards, et al., 2016; Smit et al., 2016). In addition, further research could also examine how interventions can ensure that parents set a good example at home for their children regarding healthy dietary intake, given that the descriptive norms of parents could increase their children’s fruit, vegetable, and water consumption (Story, Kaphingst, Robinson-O’Brien, & Glanz, 2008).