Search

SamenvattingDe coronacrisis kan beschouwd worden als een ‘natuurlijk experiment’ waarin de sociale context aanzienlijk is veranderd. Het is nog grotendeels onbekend hoe jongeren daarop reageren en welke gedragingen veranderen. We hebben een cohortvergelijking gemaakt van derdeklassers (N = 177, Mleeftijd = 15,00) van de middelbare school vóór de coronacrisis (voorjaar 2019) met een qua demografische kenmerken vergelijkbare groep derdeklassers (N = 188, Mleeftijd = 14,95) tijdens de eerste lockdown (voorjaar 2020). We vergeleken de domeinen eetgedrag, leefstijl en sociaal-emotionele gezondheid tussen beide cohorten en keken naar de samenhang binnen en tussen domeinen voor beide cohorten. De consumptie van zoete snacks thuis, alcoholgebruik en eenzaamheid waren in het coronacohort hoger dan vóór de coronacrisis (niet significant na correctie). De consumptie van fruit thuis, van suikerhoudende dranken en ongezonde snacks buitenshuis, en matige en zware fysieke activiteit kwamen minder voor tijdens de lockdown. Relatietevredenheid met ouders, geluksgevoel en stress door school waren lager vergeleken met het cohort vóór de lockdown. Roken, stress thuis en relatietevredenheid met beste vriend(in) waren in beide cohorten even hoog. Het patroon van samenhang binnen en tussen de domeinen verschilde. Verder onderzoek moet uitwijzen hoe veerkrachtig jongeren op de langere termijn zijn en welke jongeren ondersteuning nodig hebben om terug te veren.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus a pandemic (WHO, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic can be regarded as a social experiment in which many families, including adolescents, have been exposed to stressful situations and life events (Klaiber et al., 2021; Rossi et al., 2021). Adolescence generally is a vulnerable period for the onset of depressive symptoms (Angold, 2002), and the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have increased this vulnerability (Barendse et al., 2022; Hafstad et al., 2021; Thorisdottir, et al., 2021). Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic not only affected adolescents’ mental health, but also their physical health. Specifically, a recent meta-analysis summarizing longitudinal data of physical activity changes during the COVID-19 pandemic showed a considerable reduction in physical activity, explained by the numerous physical distancing measures, including closing of gyms and sport clubs (Neville et al., 2022). The COVID-19 pandemic thus seems to have worsened both depressive symptoms and physical activity among adolescents. Notably, there are indications that physical activity and depressive symptoms influence each other over time. To date, there are some studies supporting the unidirectional longitudinal link from increased physical activity to decreases in depressive symptoms during COVID-19 in adults (McDowell et al., 2021; Wolf et al., 2021; Young et al., 2022). This unidirectional link of protective effects of physical activity on mental health may, for instance, be explained through several psychological (e.g., decreased stress reactivity and increased distraction and self-efficacy) and biological (e.g., increased levels of endorphins, reduction of inflammation processes, and optimization of neurotransmitter production and brain circuits functioning) mechanisms (Belcher, et al., 2021; Mikkelsen et al., 2017; Mücke et al., 2018; Silverman & Deuster, 2014). In adolescents, specifically, longitudinal evidence before the COVID-19 pandemic on the temporal sequencing from physical activity to depressive symptoms shows only small, or even non-significant associations (Biddle et al., 2019; Dale et al., 2019; Hale et al., 2021). This may be due to inclusion of relatively healthy populations with relatively low and/or stable levels of depressive symptoms in the studies (Biddle, et al., 2019). As research suggests that younger individuals (e.g., adolescents) may show increased reactivity to COVID-19 related stressors (Klaiber, et al., 2021; Rossi, et al., 2021), the “stress-reducing” and “mood boosting” mechanisms of physical activity may be particularly relevant for adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The other way around, depressive symptoms (including core clinical features such as daytime fatigue, lack of energy, and motor inactivity; Crouse et al., 2021) may increase the risk of (further) reductions in physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are indeed some indications that during the COVID-19 pandemic, adults whose mental health got “worse” or “much worse” had greater reductions in physical activity compared to adults who did not report such a decline in mental health (Marashi et al., 2021). Moreover, theoretically, adolescents with higher pre-pandemic levels of depressive symptoms may be less likely to proactively seek out alternative ways to be physically active when there was a lack of structured physical activity during the pandemic (e.g., by replacing structured sports at sports clubs by running from home). As such, adolescents who experience more depressive symptoms may be particularly vulnerable for showing lower levels of physical activity. Notably, some studies have found that the link between physical activity and mental health is stronger among females than males (e.g., Sampas-Kanyinga et al., 2021; Wunsch et al., 2021). This may be explained by the indication that physical activity can decrease rumination (Brand, 2018), which occurs more frequently in adolescent females that in adolescent boys. As rumination is known to predict mental health issues (Hyde & Mezulis, 2020), adolescent females may profit more psychologically from physical activity than adolescent males, particularly during stressful periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic. As we do not have a specific hypothesis for possible gender differences in the direction the other way around (the direction from depressive symptoms to physical activity), we will exploratory test gender moderation in both directions (i.e., from physical activity to depressive symptoms and the other way around). Furthermore, there are indications that the physical activity intensity level may be relevant to consider when examining associations between physical activity and mental health. Although there are some indications that moderate or vigorous intensity levels of physical activity are more beneficial than light physical activity (Lin et al., 2020; Nie et al., 2021; Carriedo et al., 2020), there is no consensus so far across studies for the optimal physical activity intensity levels for mitigating adverse mental health symptoms (Marconcin et al., 2022). Hence, we will, in addition to examining the role of total amount of physical activity, also exploratory test potential effects for the different physical activity intensities (i.e., light physical activity and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity). Taken together, the general aim of the current longitudinal study will be to examine the (gender-specific) bi-directional temporal associations between physical activity (of different intensity levels) and depressive symptoms among adolescents spanning from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our main aim is to examine changes in physical activity and depressive symptoms from pre-pandemic (spring 2019) to during the pandemic (fall 2020, spring 2021, and fall 2021). To investigate these reciprocal relations using four waves of longitudinal data in adolescents, researchers have typically used the cross-lagged panel model (CLPM; Adachi and Willoughby, 2015; Hamaker et al., 2015). However, these more conventional CLPMs have faced criticism because the robust temporal stability of relevant constructs may reflect individual differences rather than within-person relations (e.g., Berry & Willoughby, 2017; Hamaker et al., 2015). The random intercept CLPM (RI-CLPM) is available as an extension of the CLPM to model within- and between-person effects separately to improve the interpretation of bi-directional processes (Hamaker et al., 2015), which will be used in the current study. RI-CLPMs include two latent factors (i.e., random intercepts) that capture characteristics that make adolescents different from each other: one for depressive symptoms and one for physical activity. In that way, differences in physical activity and depressive symptoms scores are separated into average differences among adolescents and fluctuations around an adolescent’s mean. Accordingly, associations between depressive symptoms and physical activity captured with the latent factors reflect between-person associations, while the other associations in the RI-CLPM reflect within-person processes (i.e., how fluctuations in adolescents’ depressive symptoms are associated with fluctuations in physical activity, and vice versa). Moreover, we will exploratory examine the role of gender by comparing separate models for boys and girls in a multi-group format of the RI-CLPM. Finally, we will explore the role of intensity levels of physical activity, by in addition to examining the role of total physical activity, also exploratory test potential effects for the different physical activity intensities (i.e., light physical activity and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity). We will do this by additionally performing separate RI-CLPMs for light physical activity and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

Disordered eating behaviors typically develop during adolescence, and have negative short-term and long-term consequences. Low self-esteem is considered to be a core contributor to the development of disordered eating behaviors (Pennesi & Wade, 2016). However, support for this association has not been consistently reported in the literature. While some studies do find support for the relevance of low self-esteem to the development of disordered eating behaviors (e.g., Stice et al., 2002; Pearson et al., 2017), others have only found partial (Brechan et al., 2015; Espinoza et al., 2019; Sehm & Warschburger, 2018) or no support for this association (e.g., Ferreiro et al., 2011). Furthermore, the link between eating behaviors and self-esteem may be bidirectional (Polivy & Herman, 2005), but the link from disordered eating behaviors to self-esteem has received little attention in the literature. One study has reported bidirectional associations between self-esteem and disordered eating behaviors in adolescents (Espinoza et al., 2019). However, this study did not separate within-person associations from between-person differences. So, it remains unclear whether self-esteem and disordered eating behaviors are bidirectionally associated within participants. Therefore, the current study will investigate the bidirectional link between self-esteem and three types of disordered eating behaviors (i.e., loss of control eating, emotional eating and restrained eating) among adolescents at the within-person level, using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Further, we will explore whether these associations differ for males and females.

The corona crisis can be considered a 'natural experiment', in which the social context has changed dramatically. It is largely unknown how adolescents respond to this, and which behaviors change. We have compared a cohort of ninth graders (

Samen Happie! is an app-based parenting program aimed at preventing childhood overweight through stimulating healthy energy-balance related parenting practices among parents of young children (0-2 years old). In a previous study (Karssen et al., 2022) we examined the process and effectiveness of the app-based program on child zBMI scores in a two-armed RCT (app vs. control condition) and examined parental educational level, BMI, and depressive symptoms as potential moderators of program effectiveness. Results showed an unexpected general increase in zBMI in both conditions at 6 and 12 months after baseline. After 6 months, the zBMI increase was least pronounced in the app condition among children of parents with lower educational level (also particularly when parents had more frequent app use) and among children of parents with higher BMI who frequently used the app. At 12 months, however, zBMI increase was most pronounced among children of parents in the app condition, irrespective of subgroups based on parental educational level or BMI. This might indicate that (frequent) app use protected against increases in child zBMI among families of parents with lower educational level and higher BMI on the shorter-term, but not on the longer-term. In this study we seek for potential explanations for these findings by assessing program-induced changes in parenting practices relating to child dietary intake, sleep, and screen time.

Adult picky eating (APE), the rejection of familiar and unfamiliar foods leading to a diet with limited variety, is an understudied phenomenon which can have both physical and mental negative consequences. There is not one gold standard in the measurement of APE yet. Therefore, in the proposed study, 260-400 participants aged 18 and above will fill out a questionnaire that measures (different elements of) APE. Different elements of a Dutch Food Preference Questionnaire (FPQ) will be correlated with different scores on other, more specific measures of adult picky eating, to investigate which elements of APE can be measured with the FPQ. Thus, the research question is: which elements of APE can be measured with an extensive food preference questionnaire, and how do the scores on these elements relate to other, more specific measures of APE?