The Relationship between Lifestyle Behaviours and Mental Health in Canadian Children

• Author / Creator

  Loewen, Olivia Kara

• Mental health disorders are an issue of epidemic proportions, affecting children and adolescents worldwide. Recent studies have suggested a link between lifestyle behaviours of diet, physical activity, screen time, and sleep with mental health in adolescence. However, a combined lifestyle behaviour measurement in relationship with mental health in young people has not been thoroughly studied. This thesis examines the association between lifestyle behaviours and mental health among a population-based sample of Canadian children and adolescents.
  My first objective of this thesis was to examine the prospective relationship between adhering to lifestyle recommendations in childhood and mental health disorders in the subsequent four years. The second objective was to determine the correlates of meeting lifestyle recommendations in early adolescence with the incidence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder until age fourteen. These objectives were addressed using population-based data collected in 2011 with the Children’s Lifestyle and School Performance study (CLASS), in Nova Scotia Canada and was linked with administrative health care data. In the first study I found that children meeting more recommendations had significantly fewer mental health visits in the following years than children who met fewer lifestyle recommendations, with greater benefits for mental health as more recommendations were met. In the second study I found that children meeting recommendations for physical activity and dietary recommendations had lower incidence of ADHD, with even lower incidence of ADHD among those who met more lifestyle recommendations.
  The present findings suggest that meeting lifestyle recommendations may be beneficial for adolescent mental health, with further benefits as more recommendations are met. These findings have important implications due to the modifiable nature of lifestyle behaviours and encourage a broad focus of psychosocial wellbeing initiatives for adolescents. Experimental and longitudinal studies are needed to expand on the present findings.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Lifestyle behaviours
  • Children
  • Population health
  • Mental health
  • Canada's Food Guide

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3F47H93M

• License

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