Fast Foods, Emotional and Behavioural Problems among Overweight and
Obese Adolescents Participating in MyBFF@school Intervention Program
Abstract
This study aimed to assess the association between the frequency of fast
food consumption in the past week with emotional and behavioural
problems of 624 overweight and obese adolescents (mean age = 14.6).
Frequency of fast food consumption was assessed through a pre-tested
nutritional knowledge, attitude and practice questionnaire. Meanwhile,
the Youth Self-Report questionnaire was used to measure emotional and
behavioural problems. Spearman’s rank-order correlation was used to
measure the strength of relationships. Positive associations that are
statistically significant were found between frequency of fast food
consumption and syndromes of anxious/depressed (rs=0.082,
p<0.05), somatic complaints (rs=0.139, p<0.01),
social problems (rs=0.115, p <0.01), thought problems
(rs=0.118, p<0.01), attention problems (rs=0.125,
p<0.01), rule-breaking behaviour (rs=0.144,
p<0.001), and aggressive behaviour (rs=0.168,
p<0.001). There were also differences found in the
associations based on gender, locality of schools and ethnicity.
Therefore, adolescents should be discouraged from consuming fast food as
much as possible.