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This study aims to investigate the influence of psychosomatic and emotional status on food portion sizes (PSs) consumption from high energy-dense food groups in European children and adolescents. We hypothesized that psychosomatic and emotional status would have a significant association with the PS selection of energy-dense food. The study included 7355 children aged between 2 and 9.9 years at baseline (T0) (48.8% females); 3869 after 2 years (T1) (48.2% females), and 2971 (51.8% females) after 6 years of follow-up (T3). Psychosomatic and emotional status were measured using emotional well-being during the last week score (KINDL) and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. PS was calculated from daily food intake recorded in 24-hour dietary recalls. The associations between emotional status indicators and PS from selected energy-dense food groups were assessed by multilevel linear regression models. In the cross-sectional analysis, we observed that higher KINDL scores were linked to lower PS consumption from sweet bakery products and savory snacks in both genders. Moreover, we found that adolescent females with high emotional and peer problem scores tended to consume larger PS of carbohydrate-rich and sugar-fatty food items (P < .017). Longitudinally, higher peer problem scores were associated with increased PS from bread and rolls, margarine and lipids, and dairy products in all genders and age groups (P< .017). In adolescents, psychosomatic and emotional status could be a trigger for consuming large PS from carbohydrate-rich and sugar-fatty energy-dense foods. Thus, nutritional interventions should consider emotional status to decrease unhealthy dietary habits in children and adolescents., Competing Interests: Author Declarations The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Knowing the extent to which mental well-being and stressful life events during adolescence contribute to personality characteristics related to risk-taking behaviors, such as emotion-driven impulsiveness, is highly relevant for the development of health promotion measures. This study examined whether psychosocial well-being and different stressful life events are associated with emotion-driven impulsiveness. In total, 3,031 adolescents (52% girls; M age  = 13.6 years) were included from the I. Family Study, a cross-sectional examination on lifestyle-related behaviors conducted across eight European countries in 2013/14. Linear mixed-effects regression models showed that higher psychosocial well-being was associated with lower emotion-driven impulsiveness independent of socio-demographic, health-related, and parental variables. A higher number of stressful life events was associated with higher emotion-driven impulsiveness. Psychosocial well-being and stressful life events need to be further considered in the development and tailoring of health promotion strategies that aim to reduce emotion-driven impulsiveness., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Background: It is unclear whether a hypothetical intervention targeting either psychosocial well-being or emotion-driven impulsiveness is more effective in reducing unhealthy food choices. Therefore, we aimed to compare the (separate) causal effects of psychosocial well-being and emotion-driven impulsiveness on European adolescents' sweet and fat propensity. Methods: We included 2,065 participants of the IDEFICS/I.Family cohort (mean age: 13.4) providing self-reported data on sweet propensity (score range: 0 to 68.4), fat propensity (range: 0 to 72.6), emotion-driven impulsiveness using the UPPS-P negative urgency subscale, and psychosocial well-being using the KINDLR Questionnaire. We estimated, separately, the average causal effects of psychosocial well-being and emotion-driven impulsiveness on sweet and fat propensity applying a semi-parametric doubly robust method (targeted maximum likelihood estimation). Further, we investigated a potential indirect effect of psychosocial well-being on sweet and fat propensity mediated via emotion-driven impulsiveness using a causal mediation analysis. Results: If all adolescents, hypothetically, had high levels of psychosocial well-being, compared to low levels, we estimated a decrease in average sweet propensity by 1.43 [95%-confidence interval: 0.25 to 2.61]. A smaller effect was estimated for fat propensity. Similarly, if all adolescents had high levels of emotion-driven impulsiveness, compared to low levels, average sweet propensity would be decreased by 2.07 [0.87 to 3.26] and average fat propensity by 1.85 [0.81 to 2.88]. The indirect effect of psychosocial well-being via emotion-driven impulsiveness was 0.61 [0.24 to 1.09] for average sweet propensity and 0.55 [0.13 to 0.86] for average fat propensity. Conclusions: An intervention targeting emotion-driven impulsiveness, compared to psychosocial well-being, would be marginally more effective in reducing sweet and fat propensity in adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]