Crystal Smit

Chapter 4 90 Conclusion and Implications The findings of this study support the growing body of social network intervention research demonstrating that incorporating the strong influences of peers seems to strengthen interventions promoting healthy behaviors (Franken et al., 2018; Sebire et al., 2018; Smit et al., 2016). Selecting influencing agents and motivating them to drink (more) water and to spread this message and behavior among their peers could prevent children from consuming more SSB. In addition, the study emphasizes that the success of the Share H 2 O social network intervention on water consumption depends on the prevailing peer norms in the context in which it is implemented. The current research focused on children’s drinking behavior, but this social network approach, which makes use of the strong influence of peers (Salvy et al., 2012) and focuses on increasing the motivation of children (Smit et al., 2018), might also have fruitful effects for other consumption behaviors, such as increasing the intake of healthy snacks.