What's so special about eating? Examining unhealthy diet of adolescents in the context of other health-related behaviours and emotional distress

Factor analysis confirmed the hypothesis that unhealthy diet is only weakly related to other health-risk behaviours, however, emotional distress was not a significant predictor of unhealthy diet.

Abstract

This study examines to what extent unhealthy diet in adolescents is related to other types of health-risk behaviours (e.g., smoking and alcohol intake). Whereas previous studies have emphasised that adolescents engage in health-risk behaviour because of a tendency to break the rules, the present study hypothesises that unhealthy diet may differ from this general pattern because emotional distress is involved. Data from the cross-sectional Dutch Health Behaviour in School aged Children study (N=5730) were employed to examine this issue. Participants completed questionnaires on eating habits, health-related behaviours, and emotional distress. Factor analysis confirmed the hypothesis that unhealthy diet is only weakly related to other health-risk behaviours. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, emotional distress was not a significant predictor of unhealthy diet. Further research is required to examine which factors other than emotional distress are responsible for engaging in unhealthy diets in adolescence.