Obesogenic behaviors have been individually associated with bullying during adolescence. However, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and diet manifest themselves in synergy and even behavioral profiles in which positive and negative behaviors coexist can be more positively associated with psychosocial outcomes. The present study aimed to analyze the association between clusters of obesogenic behaviors and different bullying roles in Brazilian adolescents. This cross-sectional study used data from the Brazilian School-based Health Survey—PENSE, 2015. A total of 100,794 male and female adolescents of the ninth-grade elementary school participated in the study. Students responded to an electronic questionnaire. Clusters of obesogenic behavior consisted of physical activity, exposure to sedentary behavior, and diet, and the different roles in bullying were: participant, victim, bully, and bully–victim. Binary logistic regression with 95% confidence intervals (CI) was used for data analysis ( p < .05). Multiple adjustments and complex sampling procedures were employed. Adolescents in the cluster “Health-promoting sedentary behavior and Diet” had reduced chances of participating in bullying (odds ration [OR] = 0.70; 95% CI [0.64, 0.76]), of being a victim (OR = 0.87; 95% CI = 0.76–0.99), and being the bully (OR = 0.65; 95% CI [0.59, 0.71]); and those from the cluster “Health-promoting physical activity and Diet” had reduced chances of participating (OR = 0.81; 95% CI [0.76, 0.87]), being a victim of bullying (OR = 0.86; 95% CI [0.76, 0.98]), being the bully (OR = 0.79; 95% CI [0.72, 0.85]), and being a bully–victim (OR = 0.74; 95% CI [0.61, 0.90]), when compared to those from the “health-risk” cluster in the adjusted analysis. Clusters of obesogenic behavior may reduce adolescent bullying: victim, bully, and bully–victim benefit when exposed to healthier behavioral profiles. The school setting must recognize bullying as a problem and therefore simultaneously promote multi-component interventions to tackle physical activity, sedentary behavior, and eating behavior. Outcomes other than obesity should be acknowledged when promoting obesogenic behaviors.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of excessive use of social media and associated factors, as well as possible health consequences in high school students in southern Brazil. Methods: This is a population-based cross-sectional study, conducted with high school students in the city of Rio Grande, RS. All students who were attending high school at the Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Sul, campus Rio Grande, were eligible for this research in the second semester of 2019. In total, 513 students participated in the study. The dependent variable was excessive use of social media, defined as more than five hours per day. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were carried out and the Poisson regression was used to verify associations, with robust adjustment of variance. Results: The prevalence of students who reported excessive use of social media was 35.9%. The groups that were most susceptible to excessive use of social media had the following profile: female, black/brown skin, aged between 18 and 20 years old, attending the first year of high school. Excessive use of social media was shown to be associated with smoking, risk of depression, anxiety and stress, high risk of suicide and drug use. Conclusions: More than a third of students used social media excessively. This behavior was associated with negative health outcomes.

More than 25% of Brazilian teenagers are currently experimenting with alcohol and this early consumption is associated with violence, unprotected sex, use of other drugs, depression, anxiety, car accidents, family confl icts and chronic diseases. This scenario may have been aggravated by the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study was undertaken with the aim of analyzing the association between fear of COVID-19 and alcohol consumption among students in a municipality in southern Brazil. For that, 170 students answered a controlled one composed of expressive instruments through the Redcap platform. Stata 15.1 was used for statistical analysis. The results indicate that fear of the pandemic may have been responsible for the 5-fold increase in alcohol consumption and that 20% of students had suicidal thoughts during the period of social distancing. The consumption of alcoholic beverages is related to more than 200 harms to cognitive, behavioral and physical health. A signifi cant increase among schoolchildren suggests the urgency of public policies aimed at identifying, monitoring and strengthening social support for the harm resulting from alcohol consumption in this age group.Keyword:Fear, coronaphobia, alcohol drinking, students, suicide

The objectives of this study were: to verify the prevalence of infodemics during the COVID-19 pandemic; and analyze associated behavioral and socioeconomic and demographic factors. Cross-sectional, population-based study carried out with a representative sample of two municipalities in southern Brazil. 2,170 individuals aged 18 years or over were interviewed from October 2020 to January 2021. Data collection was carried out in person at home using a questionnaire. The prevalence of infodemic was 22% (CI95%:18.8;25.3), having been signifi cantly higher among women, the elderly, individuals with less education and with the highest number of comorbidities.Staying at home longer, having had contact with someone infected and having lack of money to buy food were also associated with the infodemic. The excessive search for information happened through television, radio and social networks. Two out of every ten individuals were aff ected by the infodemic. Individuals who were more at home, poorer, with less years of education and with more comorbidities are more exposed to infodemics and it is noteworthy that offi cial health agencies were not the main source of information.Keywords: Infodemic, COVID-19, quarantine, mental health, epidemiology.

Objective: to identify sociodemographic and regional differences in the lack of access of aged Brazilians to medicines for hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus in the last 30 days, in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, based on data from the Telephone-based Surveillance of Risk and Protective Factors for Chronic Diseases (VIGITEL).Methods: a population-based transversal study using data from VIGITEL. Were eligible the elderly (≥60 years) who answered affirmatively to the questions “In the past 30 days, did you have been without any hypertension medications for some time?”, “In the past 30 days did you have been without any high to control diabetes for some time?”, and “In the past 30 days, did you ran out of insulin?” Chi-squared test was used to describe the prevalence of the outcome in accordance with the independent variables, and ajusted Poisson Regression was used to estimate the prevalence ratio and respective 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).Results: the prevalence of the outcome was 11.8% in 2017, 11.4% in 2018, and 11.2% in 2019. A higher prevalence of lack of access to medications for hypertension and diabetes mellitus was observed among elderly people of black/brown/yellow/ indigenous skin color, less educated, beneficiaries of Bolsa Família, without private health plan and living in the Northeast and North regions.Conclusion: there was a small reduction in the lack of access to medication for hypertension and diabetes between 2017 and 2019. Furthermore, the results reveal inequality in access to these medicines.