Health behaviours are influenced by gender-specific conceptions and norms of the society. These conceptions and norms are changing over time. The aim of this analysis is to describe gender differences in health behaviour of adolescents and to interpret these gender differences in terms of theories of social construction.We used the national German data of the Health-Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) studies conducted in the years 2001/02, 2005/06 und 2009/10 with respect to the following health behaviours: tobacco use, binge drinking, diet, fruit and vegetable consumption, daily breakfast and physical activity. We describe the difference in frequencies between girls and boys and used a series of logistic regressions to test the significance of the gender difference in health behaviours with survey year as the predictor.There is only a small difference -between girls and boys with respect to tobacco use and binge drinking. For binge drinking girls nearly converge with the figures of boys. Relatively stable gender differences over time are existing for diet, nutrition and physical activity.From a theoretical gender perspective it might be possible that with respect to risky behaviours like tobacco use and alcohol consumption a clear gender specific connotation has changed over time. In other words risk behaviours become less important in presenting oneself as masculine. A gender sensible development of preventive interventions should consider the changes over time of gender-related -social constructions.
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