Gender inequalities in the prevalence of low mood and related factors in schooled adolescents during the 2019–2020 school year: DESKcohort project

Relationship between Diet Quality and Socioeconomic and Health-Related Factors in Adolescents by Gender

“…The health-related factors studied were (7) self-reported weight and height used to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI), which was recoded into underweight, healthy weight, overweight, or obesity, as defined using age-and sex-specific BMI cut-offs according to the WHO growth reference for schoolaged children and adolescents [30]. Other health-related factors studied were (8) physical activity (in compliance with the WHO recommendation of ≥60 min per day, or under the WHO recommendation of 60 min per day [31], estimated from the average daily minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity reported by the adolescents); (9) selfperceived health (excellent/very good, good, or poor/very poor); (10) mood state (assessed through six questions [25] with answers from 1 (Never) to 5 (Always), then grouping the results in the two categories "never"/"almost never"/"sometimes" (value 0) and "often"/"always" (value 1), and finally adding up the scores for each item, with a final score of 3 or more identified as low mood [32,33]); (11) sleep quality (very good/good or poor/very poor); (12) alcohol use (hazardous drinking or non-hazardous drinking estimated using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-AUDIT-C test [34], with scores above 3 considered hazardous); (13) tobacco use (daily use or other); ( 14) cannabis use (risky consumption or non-risky consumption, estimated using the Cannabis Abuse Screening Test-CAST [35], with scores above 7 considered risky); ( 15) mobile phone use (occasional or frequent problematic use or non-problematic use, estimated using the questionnaire for mobile phone-related experiences-CERM test [36], with scores above 15 considered problematic); ( 16) self-reported academic performance (good grades, average grades, or poor grades); and (17) having experienced bullying (yes or no).…”