Does social support moderate the association between hunger and mental health in youth? A gender-specific investigation from the Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study

Nour Hammami,Scott T Leatherdale,Frank J Elgar

doi:10.1186/s12937-020-00648-3

Abstract

BackgroundYouth who go hungry have poorer mental health than their counterparts – there are gender differences in this relationship. This study investigated the role of social support in the association between hunger and mental health among a nationally representative sample of youth in Canada in gender-specific analyses.MethodsWe used a probability-based sample of 21,750 youth in grades 6–10 who participated in the 2017–2018 Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children. Self-report data were gathered on hunger, mental health (measured via the World Health Organization-5 well-being index) and five sources of support – peer, family and teacher support as well as the school climate and neighborhood support. We conducted adjusted, gender-specific, multilevel regression analyses assessing the association between mental health, social support and hunger.ResultsWe found that youth who reported lower support were more likely to experience going to bed hungry (relative to never hungry) across all support factors. As for the social support factors, all the social support factors were associated with a higher mental health score, even after controlling for hunger. Despite these results our final set of models showed that our measures of social support did not alleviate the negative association between hunger and mental health. As for gender-specific findings, the negative association between hunger and a mental health was more pronounced among females relative to their male counterparts. We also found that certain social support factors (i.e., family, teacher and neighborhood support) were associated with a higher mental health score among females relative to males while controlling for hunger status.ConclusionsWe find that five social support factors are associated with a higher mental health score among ever hungry youth; however, social support did not overpower the negative association between hunger and mental health. Food insecurity is a challenge to address holistically; however, hungry youth who have high social support have higher odds of better mental health.

Highlights

Youth who go hungry have poorer mental health than their counterparts – there are gender differences in this relationship
We found that certain social support factors were associated with a higher mental health score among females relative to males
We find that youth who experience hunger have less perceived support than youth who never experience hunger

Summary

Introduction

Youth who go hungry have poorer mental health than their counterparts – there are gender differences in this relationship. Of specific concern in Canada, households with children were found to be at a greater disadvantage of being food insecure than households without children. Among households consisting of couples without children, 3.4% were food insecure; while, across households consisting of couples with children (less than 18 years old) the number more than doubles: 7.3% had food insecurity [3]. This is problematic for those who have restricted their eating and are hungry (i.e., have severe food insecurity) [4]

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