Relationships between bullying victimization psychological distress and breakfast skipping among boys and girls

The purpose of this study was to further explore the association between bullying victimization and breakfast skipping in children and adolescents. Compared to the previous study, we have used a larger and representative sample of middle and high school students, examined the effect of gender, different forms (physical, verbal, theft/vandalism and cyber) and severity of bullying on breakfast eating behaviour. Data from students (2286 boys and 2859 girls) aged 11 to 19 years (mean +/- SD age: 14.6 +/- 1.9 years) from the 2013 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) were analysed using self-reports of being bullied, diet, psychological distress, demographics, socio-economic status, weight status, and substance use. Results revealed greater odds of breakfast skipping in girl victims of physical, verbal, and cyber bullying, and in boy victims of verbal and cyber bullying. There was a dose-response relationship between experience of both school and cyber bullying victimization and breakfast skipping behaviour for both genders. Mediation analysis indicated that psychological distress fully mediated the relationship between both verbal and physical bullying victimization and breakfast skipping in girls, and partially mediated the relationship between verbal bullying victimization and breakfast skipping in boys. Psychological distress also partially mediated the link between cyber bullying victimization and breakfast skipping in both boys and girls. These results corroborate previous findings on the association between bullying victimization and breakfast skipping in children and adolescents. The strong and consistent associations with different forms of bullying victimization, the dose-response relationship, and the mediating role of psychological distress suggest a causal relationship. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.