How is peer victimization related to adolescents' health risk behaviors? A moderated mediation analysis.

Adolescents' chronic experience of peer victimization may exacerbate a wide range of health risk behaviors and have negative outcomes for families, schools, and societies. The aim of this study was to explore peer victimization, fear of missing out, and family connectedness as potential predictive mechanisms for adolescent health risk behaviors. A moderated mediation analysis of cross-sectional data served as the basis for an examination of peer victimization levels as a predictive mechanism for adolescent health risk behaviors (N = 602, M_age = 12.86, SD = 0.71). The path analysis showed that peer victimization significantly and positively predicted fear of missing out and health risk behaviors with fear of missing out partially mediating the relationship between peer victimization and health risk behaviors. Moreover, family connectedness moderated the predictive effects of peer victimization on health risk behaviors. These findings suggest that fear of missing out may be essential to understanding how peer victimization impairs adolescents' health risk behaviors; furthermore, strengthening the sense of connectedness between adolescents and family members may be beneficial in mitigating the impact of peer victimization on health risk behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]