Association between health risk behaviors and food consumption in adolescents

ABSTRACT

The study aims to evaluate the association between substance use and social isolation with food consumption in adolescents. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 2,040 adolescents from a medium-sized city in Brazil. The exposures assessed were the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other substances, and social isolation. The outcomes were the regular consumption (≥5 times/week) of beans, fruit/fruit salad, candies, and soft drinks, and an unhealthy eating score. The association between health risk behaviors and food consumption was assessed through logistic and linear regressions. Regular users of alcohol were more likely to have regular consumption of candies and soft drinks, and those who used tobacco regularly were less likely to have regular bean consumption and more likely to have regular candies consumption. The use of at least one substance was negatively associated with regular bean consumption and positively associated with regular consumption of sweets and soft drinks. Socially isolated adolescents were less likely to have regular bean consumption. Substance use was positively associated with the unhealthy eating score. In conclusion, substance use and social isolation were associated with less regular consumption of healthy food markers and greater regular consumption of unhealthy food markers.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescent nutritional science
• health risk behaviors
• food consumption
• public schools
• substance abuse

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest..

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the L.M.O received a doctoral fellowship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES (Brazil) - Finance Code 001. The authors are grateful for support from Fundaçao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG). MFS (Grant 3166874/2021-4) and DSH (Grant 311377/2021-1) currently are Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) scholarship holders. We are also grateful to the participants in this study.