Frequency and effects of meeting health behaviour guidelines among adolescents.

Background: To assess the relationship between overweight status and the concomitant adherence to physical activity, daily screen time and nutritional guidelines. Methods: Data were derived from the Swiss Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey 2006. Participants (n = 8130, 48.7% girls) were divided into two groups: normal weight (n = 7215, 44.8% girls) and overweight (n = 915, 34.8% girls), using self-reported height and weight. Groups were compared on adherence to physical activity, screen time and nutritional guidelines. Bivariate analyses were carried out followed by multivariate analyses using normal-weight individuals as the reference category. Results: Regardless of gender, overweight individuals reported more screen time, less physical activity and less concomitant adherence to guidelines. For boys, the multivariate analysis showed that any amount exceeding screen time recommendations was associated with increased odds of being overweight [>2-4 h: adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.40; >4-6 h: AOR = 1.48; >6 h: AOR = 1.83]. A similar relation was found for any amount below physical activity recommendations (4-6 times a week: AOR = 1.67; 2-3 times a week: AOR = 1.87; once a week or less: AOR = 2.1). For girls, not meeting nutritional guidelines was less likely among overweight individuals (0-2 recommendations: AOR = 0.54). Regardless of weight status, more than half of the adolescents did not comply with any guideline and <2% met all three at the same time. Conclusions: Meeting current nutritional, physical activity and screen time guidelines should be encouraged with respect to overweight. However, as extremely low rates of concomitant adherence were found regardless of weight status, their achievability is questionable (especially for nutrition), which warrants further research to better adapt them to adolescents

Could music potentially serve as a functional alternative to alcohol consumption? The importance of music motives among drinking and non-drinking adolescents

Contains fulltext : 135030.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Background and aims: This study investigated whether adolescents who drink and those who are teetotal differ in the link between music motives and health-related outcomes (life satisfaction, self-rated health, school pressure, somatic complaints, depressed and aggressive mood, physical powerlessness, frequency of being bullied and bullying others and evenings spent out with friends). It also looked at whether associations between music motives and health-related outcomes remained significant when drinking motives were included among drinkers. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models were estimated based on data from 4,481 adolescents from Switzerland (mean age 14.5, SD = 0.9). Results: It was confirmed that the four music motives and the four drinking motives obtained by crossing the valence (positive–negative) and the source (internal–external) of expected change in affect form distinct dimensions (i.e. the 8-factor model best fitted the data). Drinkers and non-drinkers differed in the various links between music motives and health-related outcomes. For example, almost all the links between conformity music motives and the health-related outcomes were significant for non-drinkers but not for drinkers. Enhancement music motives, by contrast, were often significant for drinkers but not for non-drinkers. Coping music motives were significant among both drinkers and non-drinkers. These links were basically unchanged when drinking motives were taken into account. Discussion and conclusions: This study indicates that music serves important functions in the lives of adolescents, even among those who use alcohol for different motives. This makes listening to music a promising potential alternative to alcohol use.8 p

Parental drinking and characteristics of family life as predictors of preschoolers' alcohol-related knowledge and norms

While risky drinking in adolescence has been found to be rooted in childhood, evidence is scarce regarding where early alcohol-related knowledge originates. This study investigates preschoolers' alcohol-related knowledge about beverage names, content and social norms (i.e. drinking to be common among men and at parties) depending on parental alcohol consumption patterns and characteristics of family life. In French-speaking Switzerland, 214 three to six year olds completed the electronic Appropriate Beverage Task (Kuntsche, Le Mevel, & Zucker, 2016) while their parents (205 mothers, 154 fathers) were surveyed with a questionnaire. The results showed that when parents drank frequently, at higher quantity, or during meals, their children knew more about the names of alcoholic beverages and the social norms of consumption. No effect was found for parental binge drinking or living in a single-parent household. Frequent contact with adults outside the immediate family (visits from relatives and going to fairs and neighborhood parties) but not television viewing was associated with both knowing the name and the alcoholic content of alcoholic beverages. To conclude, this study indicates that the knowledge of children aged three to six about the content, name and consumption norms of alcoholic beverages does not only depend on the drinking frequency and quantity of their parents, but also on contact with adults outside the immediate family. When frequently surrounded by alcohol-consuming adults, children may get the impression that alcohol consumption is a common human behavior, which may put them at risk for early alcohol initiation and risky drinking later in life

Parent-based interventions for preventing or reducing adolescent substance use: A systematic literature review

Contains fulltext : 157511.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Despite the increasing relevance of peers, parents remain important socializing agents for their adolescent children and are therefore promising agents for inclusion in prevention or intervention programs. This systematic review provides an overview of the effectiveness of parent-based programs in preventing, curbing or reducing substance use (i.e. alcohol, tobacco and cannabis) among 10 to 18-year-olds. The databases PubMed, PsychInfo, Eric and Google Scholar were used to identify randomized trials published within the past 12 years evaluating effects on adolescent substance use. Of the 653 identified in the first screening, 39 publications dealing with 13 programs were included. Results reveal desirable effects of parenting measures such as rule-setting, monitoring and parent–child communication. There was also some evidence in terms of preventing, curbing or reducing adolescent substance use. However, this appears to depend particularly on the age group of the adolescents in question, the kind of parents included and the intensity of the program. To conclude, the results of this systematic review underline the importance of including parents in programs aiming to impede initiation of substance use or curb or reduce already existing substance use in adolescence.13 p

Being old fashioned in a modern world: Gender role attitudes moderate the relation between role conflicts and alcohol use of parents

Contains fulltext : 201326.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Background: Balancing contradictory demands of different social roles such as work and family can lead to role conflicts. However, whether such conflicts lead to detrimental alcohol use may depend on the individual's gender role attitudes (GRA). For example, considering family care taking as a female task, and breadwinning as a male task. This study investigates whether GRA moderates the relation between work-family conflicts (WFC) and alcohol use, namely usual quantity of alcohol consumed on a drinking day and annual frequency of alcohol use. Methods: Employed parents (163 mothers (mean age = 37.1, SD = 4.5)), 142 fathers (mean age = 40.5, SD = 4.6)) of young children were sampled in preschool classes and nurseries in French-speaking Switzerland. Results: The higher the level of WFC the higher the frequency of alcohol use in men and the higher usual quantity in women. These associations were not found for GRA. However, GRA moderated the relationship between WFC and alcohol use, i.e., increasing alcohol use with increasing WFC was exclusively found among parents with more traditional GRA. Conclusion: Among employed parents of preschool children, traditional role distributions may impede flexible responses to varying job and family demands leading to higher alcohol use in both genders, i.e., men increasing their drinking occasions and women the amount per occasion. Promoting higher gender equity in the fulfilment of family demands and allowing greater flexibility in solving conflicts, could possibly help to prevent the detrimental alcohol use arising from work-family constraints and conflicts.4 p

Even in early childhood offspring alcohol expectancies correspond to parental drinking

Contains fulltext : 180365.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Background: Research has found that children as young as preschoolers have an idea about the valence (positive vs. negative) and activation (arousal vs. sedation) of emotional change when adults drink alcohol. The development of alcohol expectancies at such a young age may be due to observed parental alcohol use. Methods: Three measures of alcohol use (frequency, quantity and binge drinking) assessed among 115 fathers and 149 mothers were correlated with four alcohol expectancy factors (crossing valence and activation) of their offspring, aged three to six (70 boys and 82 girls). Results: For both arousal and sedation expectancies and across alcohol use measures of both fathers and mothers, the greater parental alcohol use was, the higher their sons' negative and the lower positive alcohol expectancies were. For negative expectancies (particularly sedation, i.e., drinking when feeling sad or depressed), there was a stronger and more consistent association with paternal than with maternal drinking. For daughters, there was no consistent association between any expectancy factor and any parental drinking behavior. Conclusions: Already among preschoolers, parental drinking was found to be correlated with their sons' alcohol expectancies in the sense that they may observe and associate positive emotional consequences (feeling joyful, happy, calm, relaxed etc.) with moderate parental drinking and negative emotional consequences (feeling angry, nervous, sad, depressed etc.) with excessive drinking. This may be important for prevention, as expectancies have been found to be predominant predictors of early alcohol initiation and development of risky drinking in adolescence and beyond.4 p

Development and initial validation of the Alcohol Expectancy Task (AET)

Contains fulltext : 175168.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Background: Although studies have shown that alcohol expectancies are prominent predictors of alcohol initiation and subsequent drinking levels, the questionnaires used to assess these expectancies among young adolescents have been criticized as being time-intensive, biased and inappropriate. Methods: In response, we developed the Alcohol Expectancy Task (AET), in which eight scenarios featuring adults in everyday situations and in different emotional states, accompanied by photos of a range of beverages (four alcoholic, eight non-alcoholic) are displayed on a tablet screen, and participants are then asked to tap on the beverage they think the given person had been drinking. Results: In a first study among 184 adults (75.1% women; mean age=37.8, SD=12.2), results from a repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a strong correspondence between the emotions depicted in the scenarios and how the participants interpreted them. In a second study, this time among 283 third and fourth graders (50.2% girls; mean age=10.6, SD=0.69), a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the four-factor structure of the AET. The results from a logistic regression analysis showed that the more often young adolescents assigned alcohol to the adults in an arousal-positive mood than to those in a sedation-negative mood, the more likely they were to have already consumed alcohol more than twice. Questionnaire-assessed expectancies were unrelated to adolescents' drinking and did not affect the associations of the AET. Conclusions: The AET has the advantage of being time-efficient and convenient and could overcome certain limitations associated with questionnaire-based assessments of alcohol expectancy.10 p

When the burden gets overwhelming: Testing an inverse U-shaped relation between work-family conflicts and alcohol use

Background: Combining work and family demands often results in conflicts increasing alcohol use. However, extreme levels of conflict may be associated with low volumes consumed. This study tests such an inverse u-shaped relationship and whether this is influenced by the source from which the conflicts mainly arise (family duties and/or work obligations). Methods: Regression models including linear and quadratic terms were estimated based on a sample of 305 employed parents (mean age = 38.7; 52.1% mothers) in French-speaking Switzerland. Results: No significant gender differences were found for the total level of conflict, but men reported significantly more work conflicts influencing family life than women. A significant positive linear (B = 2.10, SE = 0.72) and negative quadratic (B = -0.60, SE = 0.26) effect was found indicating that parents with low and those with high level of conflict report drinking less alcohol than those with a medium level of conflict. This relation was independent from the underlying sources of conflict and persisted when adjusting for gender, level of employment, number of children, or age of the youngest child. Conclusion: This study extends existing knowledge by demonstrating that the relationship between work-family conflicts (WFC) and alcohol use is more complex than previously assumed. To explain the inverse u-shaped relation, future studies should test two major processes: (a) holding multiple roles may cause more conflicts but will also limit the opportunities to engage in alcohol use, (b) those facing high level of WFC are a particular risk group experiencing detrimental health outcomes other than hazardous drinking, and (c) a combination of both

Monitoring adolescent health behaviours and social determinants cross-nationally over more than a decade: Introducing the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study supplement on trends

Contains fulltext : 145493.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Young people are among the major driving forces of society's development. They are the capital on which tomorrow's world is built. It is not the young people per se that enhance tomorrow's quality of life but their ideas, creativity, motivation and energy to move things forward; these are all aspects that are closely intertwined with health and wellbeing. Young people's health and wellbeing is multi-faceted and several aspects contribute to it such as their physical condition, being overweight, injuries, physical activity, having a good relationship with their parents, not being bullied or stressed by school-related issues, safe sexual intercourse and—most of all—being free of physical or mental complaints and satisfied with life in general. It is one of this supplement's strengths to bring many of these aspects together in one volume. But where are we standing in terms of adolescent health and wellbeing and related factors? What can possibly or realistically be achieved in the near future? These questions are crucial for policy makers in charge of improving young people's health and wellbeing. However, in a world in which most if not all conditions were found to be relative, it is impossible to answer these questions without a 'fixed point' or 'stand point' for comparison. In this respect, this supplement offers two valuable anchors. First, all contributions include multiple countries. This allows to see where a given country is standing in comparison to the neighbouring countries or to countries in different regions of Europe or even overseas. Second, all contributions include multiple survey years. This allows the comparison of a given age group, e.g. 15-year-olds, surveyed in 2010 with the same-aged peers living in the same country 4, 8, 12 or 16 years ago. Moreover, both aspects contribute to the assessment of differences in changes of prevalence (differences in trends) of health behaviours and social determinants across different countries. While it is difficult to link a policy measure implemented in a given country at a certain time point or differences in a country-specific policy to observed differences in adolescent health behaviours or related factors, the results presented here nevertheless offer valuable insight on which evidence-based policy can and should be based.4 p