Adolescents who go hungry report more worry and higher suicidality
Submitted by Mirela Zaneva
Previously, researchers disagreed about whether hunger relates to worse mental health, and how strong that relationship might be. One reason for this disagreement is that researchers often analyse data in different ways. We addressed this problem through a specific approach, called multiverse analysis. This lets us analyse data with not just one analysis, but with all plausible and theoretically sound ones.
As most research on the topic of hunger and mental health has historically focused on adults and those living in higher-resourced, Western countries, we focused on children and adolescents globally. We linked together data from adolescents in 79 countries, resulting in a total of 410,213 young people. These students had all responded to short questions about their experiences (if any) of hunger, worrying, and suicidal thoughts, plans, and intentions.
Our multiverse approach included over 15,000 analyses. Across these, we found that hungry adolescents consistently reported more worrying and suicidality compared to those who were not hungry. More concretely, 58% of students reported worrying when not hungry, but 71% reported worrying when experiencing any hunger (which is a relative percent increase of 22.4%). When looking at suicidal ideation, 14% of students reported suicidal ideation when not hungry, and 19% reported it when hungry (which is a relative percent increase of 35.7%). We also found evidence for a so-called dose-response relationship, meaning that more frequent hunger was linked to greater mental health problems.
I’m a young person – what does this mean for me?
If you have experienced going without enough food and also found yourself worrying a lot or struggling with difficult thoughts, our research suggests these experiences are often connected for many young people worldwide – you are not alone. It can help to talk to a trusted adult like a parent, caregiver or teacher, who may be able to offer further support in regards to both food and how you are feeling.
I’m a clinician – what does this mean for me?
Our research shows a strong and clear relationship between experiencing hunger and certain mental health problems, like worrying and suicidality. Given the robustness of the relationship, if you are a clinician, you should consider asking about food security as part of a mental health assessment, and equally, ask about mental health when supporting a young person who may be experiencing hunger or deprivation.