The bully-victim overlap and nutrition among school-aged youth in North America and Europe

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.05.027Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Research demonstrates the deleterious consequences of bullying for youth.

  • Even so, more research on the origins of bully perpetration and victimization is needed.

  • A link between diet and bullying emerged among a large, cross-national sample of youth.

  • Infrequent health foods, frequent junk foods, and meal deprivation elevate bullying risk.

  • A dose-response relationship was detected for perpetration, but not for victimization.

Abstract

Bullying behavior and its consequences is a public health issue of significant concern, due to the wide range of deleterious health, mental health, behavioral, and psychosocial problems identified among adolescent bully victims. Even so, the role of dietary behaviors in bullying and bully victimization remains unclear. Our objective was to examine the associations between dietary patterns among youth, bully perpetration, and bully victimization. We employed a cross-national study of approximately 150,000 youths, aged 10–16, from 40 different countries with complete information about bully victimization, perpetration, and a number of dietary items reflecting three different nutritional dimensions – health food consumption, junk food consumption, and meal deprivation. The findings indicate that health food consumption, junk food consumption, and meal deprivation were significantly associated with bully perpetration, regardless of whether bullying co-occurred with victimization (low health food consumption: OR = 1.24, CI = 1.19–1.30; high junk food consumption: OR = 1.66, CI = 1.60–1.73; frequent meal deprivation: OR = 1.48, CI = 1.42–1.54). Even so, none of the three dietary dimensions were associated with significant changes in the odds of bully victimization in the absence of perpetration. Ultimately, the predicted probability of being a bully more than doubles among youths reporting all three dimensions of nutritional risk, relative to youths reporting none. We propose that early dietary interventions among youth that diminish hunger and improve eating behaviors among at-risk populations may help to reduce the prevalence of bullying and its negative sequelae.

Introduction

Adolescent bullying is a form of peer-to-peer aggression that often occurs in the school setting and is predicated on an imbalance of power between the perpetrator and the victim (Olweus, 2013). Although bullying has been widely studied (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014), the significance of bullying behavior and its consequences has dramatically risen in the past decade due to the wide range of deleterious health, mental health, behavioral, and psychosocial problems experienced by bully victims (Feder, 2007; Ng & Tsang, 2008; Östberg, Modin, & Låftman, 2018; Reijntjes et al., 2011; Van Geel, Vedder, & Tanilon, 2014). Additionally, research has indicated that school bullying is a predictor of multiple forms of aggression and/or violence later in life (Ttofi, Farrington, & Lösel, 2012), particularly for males (Renda, Vassallo, & Edwards, 2011). Despite the body of evidence highlighting the various risks incurred for both perpetrators and victims as a result of bullying, the etiology of bullying itself remains somewhat elusive.

One set of factors that might underpin bullying behaviors that are generally left unexplored are nutritional factors. A long-standing body of research points to the role of malnutrition and poor diet quality in the development of antisocial and aggressive behavior more generally (Jackson, 2016; Jackson & Vaughn, 2017; Liu, Raine, Venables, & Mednick, 2004; Raine, Mellingen, Liu, Venables, & Mednick, 2003). The hypothesized theoretical mechanism linking poor nutrition to these forms of behavior is via the impact it may exert on frontal systems of executive governance that result in the (in)ability to regulate cognitive or emotional impulses (Nyaradi et al., 2014; Wills, Isasi, Mendoza, & Ainette, 2007). From a developmental standpoint, these systems may be particularly sensitive to nutrient deprivation stemming from poor diet quality. If prior research and theory reveal a connection between poor nutrition and aggressive and antisocial behavior, then a major constituent component of aggression, namely bullying behavior, should also be tied to dietary patterns. Consistent with this line of theorizing, multiple studies have found a positive relationship between poor impulse control and bully perpetration (Coolidge, DenBoer, & Segal, 2004; Moon & Alarid, 2015).

The present study takes advantage of a unique data source, the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC), 2009/2010 and carefully examines multiple nutritional factors and the bully-victim nexus in a large and internationally diverse sample. Given prior research that links nutritional factors to aggressive and antisocial behaviors (Jackson, 2016; Jackson & Vaughn, 2017; Liu et al., 2004; Oddy et al., 2009; Raine et al., 2003), we propose that dietary patterns might also be associated with bully perpetration and/or bully victimization among school-aged youth. We hypothesize that bully perpetration will not only be associated with these forms of poor diet quality but that a severity-based gradient (the poorer the diet, the greater the bullying) will exist. Conversely, we suggest that bully victimization in the absence of bully perpetration will not be associated with poor diet quality. Examining dietary factors and their associations with bullying is worthwhile, as strategies designed to improve diet quality among youth may have the added benefit of reducing the likelihood of bullying and its negative sequelae.

Section snippets

The underpinnings of bullying: findings from the literature

As previously noted, the harmful effects of repeated bully victimization are well-documented (Feder, 2007; Ng & Tsang, 2008; Östberg et al., 2018; Reijntjes et al., 2011; Van Geel et al., 2014). In light of the numerous negative consequences of bullying for victims, continued investigation into the underpinnings of bullying remains a top priority for both violence and health scholars. The bulk of the literature to date on the risk factors for bullying point to various individual (e.g., low

Aggressive and violent behaviors: the role of nutrition

A growing number of studies have indicated that nutritional factors are predictive of various externalizing, aggressive, and violent behaviors, many of which have features in common with bullying (e.g., see Gesch, 2013; Jackson, 2016; Jackson & Vaughn, 2017; Liu et al., 2004; Oddy et al., 2009; Raine et al., 2003). For instance, a recent study of a large sample of kindergarten-aged twins in the U.S. indicated that, even after accounting for shared genetic and environmental factors, twins who

Considering the nexus between nutrition and bullying: An extension of the literature

Despite the body of evidence underscoring the relevance of nutrition in aggressive and antisocial behaviors, the literature examining the precise underpinnings of bullying has generally focused on phenomena pertaining to environmental socialization and individuals traits, only rarely considering the role of nutrition (however see Holubcikova, Kolarcik, Geckova, Reijneveld, & van Dijk, 2015; Zahedi et al., 2014). Although some scholars have linked bully perpetration to certain health conditions

Sample

Data for the current study come from the HBSC Survey, 2009/2010. The HBSC 2009/2010 survey is a World Health Organization (WHO) collaborative, cross-national survey conducted by the HBSC research network, which includes 40 countries/regions across Europe and North America. The survey was designed to elucidate the health of youths in their broader social context, and the associations between social behaviors and health behaviors among adolescents. The international standard questionnaire was

Results

Descriptive statistics are displayed in Table 1. Ten percent (10%) of youths in the sample were designated as bullies. Among the youths who were bullies, 30% were bully-victims and 70% were bullies only. Eleven percent (11%) of youths in the sample were designated as victims. Among the youths who were victims, 27% were bully-victims and 73% were victims only. In terms of the dimensions of nutritional risk, 16% of youths were designated as eating health foods infrequently, 19% were designated as

Discussion

Bullying continues to be of great concern to scholars, practitioners, and the public (Feder, 2007; Srabstein & Piazza, 2008). Despite existing concerns, the underpinnings of bullying are complex and multifaceted and therefore would benefit from additional investigation (see Álvarez-García et al., 2015). The current study aimed to explore the potential link between dietary patterns and bullying in an international sample of youth. The analyses yielded three key findings. First, the results

Declarations of interest

None.

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