Association Between Dietary Patterns and Bullying Among Adolescents in Sao Paulo—Brazil

Abstract

Previous studies have assessed the association between food consumption and bullying perpetration, but most of them have not broadly assessed food consumption, neither the distinction between forms of bullying. The aim of the study was to evaluate the association between dietary patterns with bullying roles and its different types of bullying perpetration among adolescents. Data on a representative sample of ninth-grade students ( N = 2,163; mean age = 14.8 years) taken from Sao Paulo Project for the social development of children and adolescents (SP-PROSO) were used. The independent variables were healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns obtained by exploratory factor analysis. The dependent variables were bullying role (victim-only, bully-only, bully-victim) and bullying perpetration (any type, social exclusion, psychological/verbal aggression, physical aggression, property destruction, sexual harassment). Multinomial and logistic regression models were performed for the total sample and stratified by sex (only for association with sexual harassment), adjusting for covariates. Adolescents who engaged in a healthy dietary pattern were less likely to be bullies (RR 0.67 [0.49, 0.92]), while adolescents with an unhealthy dietary pattern were more likely to be bully-victims (RR 1.29 [1.12, 1.48]). Unhealthy dietary pattern was associated with any type of bullying perpetration ( OR 1.24 [1.12, 1.38]), mainly with sexual harassment and physical aggression. Boys who had an unhealthy dietary pattern were more likely to sexually harass another adolescent ( OR 2.10 [1.20, 3.66]). In conclusion, adolescents who had a healthy dietary pattern were less likely to perpetrate bullying. Unhealthy dietary pattern was associated with bullying perpetration, especially with sexual harassment by boys.