Project description:This study aimed to investigate whether screen time and social media use are associated with weight-change behaviors among an international sample of adolescents. Cross-sectional data from the 2020 International Food Policy Study Youth Survey (ages 10-17; Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States; N = 12,031) were analyzed. Self-reported hours of use of five forms of screen time (e.g., social media use), and total screen time per weekday were assessed. Use of six contemporary social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) were also assessed. Weight-change behaviors included current attempts to gain weight, lose weight, stay the same weight, and not do anything to change weight, as well as dieting to lose weight in the past 12 months. Greater total screen time per weekday was associated with attempts to gain weight and lose weight, and dieting to lose weight. Specific social media platform use was associated with weight-change behaviors. For example, use of Twitter was most strongly associated with attempts to gain weight, lose weight, and dieting to lose weight. Findings underscore the international pervasiveness of screen time and social media use correlating with weight-change behaviors among adolescents. Global efforts are needed to ensure the appropriate use of screens and social media among adolescents.
Project description:Background. Bullying is a major school problem. Victims of bullying often experience low self-esteem, whereas social skills are positively associated with the level of self-esteem. This research examined whether the victim's condition impacted their social skills and self-esteem. Methods. International school students in Thailand aged 13 to 18 years old completed the Olweus bullying questionnaire, social capital questionnaire (SC), social skills questionnaire (SS), adolescent discrimination index (ADDI), and the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES). Moderation analyses and visual presentations were carried out using IBM SPSS ver. 22 and PROCESS, ver. 4.0. Results. A total of 102 students participated (63% female). The mean age of the participants was 16.57 (SD = 1.42). The number of victims was 16 (15.7%), the mean (SD) for the SC, SS, ADDI, and RSES was 7.82 (2.37), 44.45 (9.40), 12.33 (9.82), and 27.85 (5.31), respectively. As predicted, those with high social skills reported greater self-esteem when they had never been bullied. The moderation effect was significant: B = 0.458, standard error = 0.203, 95% CI = -0.836 to -0.054. Additionally, the ADDI and SC were found to predict self-esteem. Conclusions. The significant moderation effect suggests the importance of identifying the victim's condition when the association between social skills and self-esteem is not observed (as expected) among school adolescents. A longitudinal study to confirm the causal relationship should be encouraged. Further research on providing appropriate interventions along with social skill training for the victim group is warranted.
Project description:Background: Adolescents with obesity are more likely to experience bullying in comparison to their healthy weight peers. However, it is unclear whether adolescents with obesity are more likely to perpetuate bullying or be both, a bully perpetrator and a bully victim. The purpose of this analysis was to examine differences in bully perpetration, victimization, and both (perpetration and victimization) by BMI classification in a nationally representative sample of adolescents. Methods: Analyses included 31,770 adolescents, ages 10-17, from the combined 2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health. Adolescents were grouped by BMI classification; outcome variables included bullying, difficulty making new friends, excessive arguing, depression, and behavioral conduct problems. Logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex, race, household income, highest level of education in the household, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder assessed the odds of each outcome comparing healthy weight to adolescents with overweight and obesity. Results: Adolescents with overweight and obesity had greater odds of experiencing bullying behaviors: bully victim [odds ratio (OR) = 1.34 and 2.03] and both bully perpetrator and victim (OR = 1.37 and 2.01) (p's < 0.05), respectively, in comparison to healthy weight peers. Adolescents with overweight or obesity involved in bullying behaviors had significantly higher odds of behavioral conduct problems, depression, arguing excessively, and having difficulty making friends compared to adolescents with overweight or obesity who were neither a bully perpetrator nor victim (p's < 0.05). Conclusions: To promote overall health and well-being among adolescents with overweight and obesity, effort should be made to mitigate engagement in and/or victimization from bullying and associated behavioral or depressive symptoms.
Project description:: The present study examined the relations among poly-bullying victimization (experiencing multiple forms of peer bullying), resilience and subjective well-being. This study specifically examined late adolescents' resilience as a moderator of the relation between poly-bullying victimization and subjective well-being. In a region of central Spain, 1430 undergraduate students (64% females, 36% males), aged between 18 and 22 years, completed three self-reported measures, including bullying victimization experiences, self-reported subjective well-being and resilience. A substantial proportion of the participants (16.9%) reported being victims of poly-bullying. The results showed that the poly-bullying victimization group reported the poorest subjective well-being and the lowest resilience levels. The regression analyses revealed that resilience was significantly and positively associated with subjective well-being, and resilience moderated the association between poly-bullying victimization and subjective well-being. However, the relation was very weak and accounted for only an additional 1% of variance in the participants' subjective well-being. Future research should assess resilience trajectories of youth exposed to multiple forms of bullying victimization in order to better understand the potential protective effect of resilience over negative mental health outcomes.
Project description:BackgroundBullying is an emerging risk factor for poor mental health outcomes adversely affecting children and adolescents. However, it has rarely caught the attention of the health and education sector due to lack of evidence in many countries including Nepal. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and factors associated with bullying behavior among adolescent students in Nepal.MethodsWe used nationally representative data from the Nepal Global School-Based Student Health Survey that involved two-stage cluster sampling design with the use of a standard set of self-administered questionnaires. Complex sample analysis was done to determine the prevalence and correlates of bullying among 6529 students of 68 schools studying in grade 7 to 11 using descriptive analysis and multivariable logistic regression.ResultsThe overall prevalence of bullying among Nepalese school adolescents was 51% (55.67% in male and 46.17% in female). Bullied adolescents more commonly reported mental health problems with higher risk of loneliness (aOR 1.36, 95% CI: 1.12, 1.64), anxiety (aOR 2.04, 95% CI: 1.65, 2.52), suicide attempt (aOR 2.08, 95% CI: 1.54, 2.81), school absenteeism due to fear (aOR 1.72, 95% CI: 1.34, 2.21) and school truancy (aOR 1.48, 95% CI: 1.17, 1.87). A significant association was seen between bullying victimization and negative health behaviors like involvement in physical fights (aOR 3.64, 95% CI: 2.94, 4.51) and tobacco use (aOR 2.05, 95% CI: 1.15, 3.65).ConclusionSchool bullying is significantly associated with mental health factors like loneliness, anxiety, suicide attempt, school absenteeism and risky behavioral factors like smokeless tobacco use and involvement in physical fight. The insights provided by these findings have important implications for planning anti-bullying strategies in school settings in the Nepalese context.
Project description:BackgroundSexual minority status is associated with face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimization. However, limited studies have investigated whether such a relationship differs by sex or grade in a nationally representative sample.MethodsWe concatenated the national high school data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) chronologically from 2015 to 2019, resulting in a sample of 32,542 high school students. We constructed models with the interaction term between sexual minority status and biological sex assigned at birth to test the effect modification by sex on both the multiplicative and additive scales. A similar method was used to test the effect modification by grade.ResultsAmong heterosexual students, females had a higher odds of being bullied than males, while among sexual minority students, males had a higher odds of being bullied. The effect modification by sex was significant on both the multiplicative and additive scales. We also found a decreasing trend of bullying victimization as the grade increased among both heterosexual and sexual minority students. The effect modification by the grade was significant on both the multiplicative and the additive scale.ConclusionsTeachers and public health workers should consider the difference in sex and grade when designing prevention programs to help sexual minority students.
Project description:IntroductionKnowledge of the risk factors of bullying victimization in adolescents is crucial for the implementation of preventive measures. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of bullying victimization and to identify its correlation with mental health outcomes among middle school students in Tunisia.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted using a multi-stage cluster sampling technique to recruit a sample of 1111 students from 10 middle schools in El kef (Tunisia). The revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire was used to assess the prevalence and types of bullying victimization and the perceived efforts of others to counteract bullying. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used for screening emotional and behavioral problems. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine associated factors of bullying victimization. Additionally, we tested whether emotional and behavioral problems were present for bullying victims.ResultsThe findings reported that 45.8% (95%CI = 45.5-46.0), of the total number of participants experienced school bullying victimization. Multivariate logistic regression analysis, revealed that repeating a grade (OR = 1.82, 95%CI = 1.31-2.54), having a working father (OR = 17.68; 95%CI = 2.29-136,15), and having a working mother (OR = 1.88, 95%CI = 1.39-2.53) were the factors significantly associated with bullying victimization. Nevertheless, a higher mother's educational level (OR = 0.76, 95%CI = 0.67-0.88) was a protective factor against bullying victimization. The self-reported SDQ revealed that the total difficulties score was significantly higher among victims (17.46 ± 5.30 vs. 20.86 ± 5.06, p<0.01).ConclusionsThis study showed that the prevalence of bullying in middle schools was high and it significantly led to mental health problems. National policies for bullying prevention within schools are potentially needed. Improving students' problem-solving and soft skills is also essential.
Project description:Social media can lead to rejection, cyber-bullying victimisation, and cyber-aggression, and these experiences are not fully understood as experienced by autistic adults. To investigate this, 78 autistic adults completed self-report measures of social media use, cyber-bullying victimisation, cyber-aggression, and self-esteem. High levels of social media use were found to be associated with an increased risk of cyber-victimisation; whereas self-esteem was positively correlated with feelings of belonging to an online community and negatively correlated with feelings of being ignored on social network sites and chat rooms. Future studies are needed to further investigate the experience of cyber-bullying victimisation of autistic adults.
Project description:BackgroundGrade repetition is practiced worldwide and varies considerably across the globe. Globally, around 32.2 million students repeated a grade at the primary education level in 2010. Although a large body of research has documented grade repetition's academic and non-academic effects, the limited evidence on associations between grade repetition and school bullying is inconsistent and ambiguous. This study aimed to investigate the global association of grade repetition with bullying victimization in a large-scale school-based cross-sectional study.Methods and findingsWe used the latest global data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. PISA 2018 was conducted between March and August 2018 in 80 countries and economies among students aged 15-16 years attending secondary education. The students reported their experiences of repeating a grade at any time point before the survey and of being bullied in the past 12 months. The outcome measures were 6 types of bullying victimization. We accounted for the complex survey design and used multivariate logistic regression models to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of grade repetition with bullying victimization after adjusting for potential confounders (sex; age group; migrant status; school type; economic, social, and cultural status; and parental emotional support). This study included 465,146 students (234,218 girls and 230,928 boys) with complete data on grade repetition and bullying victimization in 74 countries and economies. The lifetime prevalence of grade repetition was 12.26%, and 30.32% of students experienced bullying at least a few times a month during the past 12 months. Grade repetition was statistically significantly associated with each type of bullying victimization. The OR (95% CI) of overall bullying victimization for grade repeaters compared with their promoted peers was 1.42 (95% CI 1.32-1.52, p < 0.001). The sex-specific analysis produced similar results in both boys and girls. Furthermore, girls who repeated a grade had higher risks of being made fun of, being threatened, having possessions taken away, and being pushed around than boys. The major limitation is that this study only included students attending schools and therefore may be subject to possible selection bias. In addition, the cross-sectional design hinders us from establishing causality between grade repetition and bullying victimization.ConclusionsIn this study, we observed that, globally, both boys and girls who repeat a grade are at increased risk of being bullied compared with promoted peers, but girls may experience higher risks than boys of specific types of bullying associated with repeating a grade. These findings provide evidence for the association of grade repetition with bullying victimization. Sex differences in risk of experiencing some types of bullying suggest that tailored interventions for girls who repeat a grade may be warranted.
Project description:Relational bullying and victimization are common social experiences during adolescence, but relatively little functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research has examined the neural correlates of bullying and victimization in adolescents. The aim of the present study was to address this gap by examining the association between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces and peer relational bullying and victimization in a community-based sample of adolescents. Participants included 49 adolescents, 12-15 years old, who underwent fMRI scanning while completing an emotional face matching task. Results indicated that interactions between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces predicted self-reported relational bullying and victimization. Specifically, a combination of higher amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted more bullying behavior, whereas a combination of lower amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted less relational victimization. Exploratory whole-brain analyses also suggested that increased rostral anterior cingulate cortex activity to fearful faces was associated with less bullying. These results suggest that relational bullying and victimization are related to different patterns of neural activity to angry and fearful faces, which may help in understanding how patterns of social information processing predict these experiences.