title: Associations between diet quality and mental health in socially disadvantaged New Zealand adolescents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the relationship between diet quality and mental health in an ethnically diverse adolescent population in New Zealand.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional, population-based study design. Data were available at baseline for 4249 students. Responses from self-reported dietary questionnaires were used to assess diet quality; healthy eating and unhealthy eating were assessed as two separate scales. Mental health was assessed by the emotional subscale of the PedsQL instrument.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eating a healthy diet was significantly associated with better emotional health (P<0.001) and eating an unhealthy diet was significantly associated with greater emotional distress (P<0.001), after controlling for age, ethnicity and gender. The healthy and unhealthy eating scales were independently related to mental health scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings contribute to a growing body of literature that diet quality is associated with mental health in adolescents. Further research is warranted to determine whether improvements to the diets of adolescents can have meaningful improvements to mental well-being.
authors.affiliation: Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Kulkarni
authors.affiliation: Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Swinburn
authors.affiliation: Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Utter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017195:Adolescent Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000342:Affective Symptoms; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004032:Diet / Q000523:psychology*; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D063427:Food Quality; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D009520:New Zealand; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D035862:Vulnerable Populations; D055815:Young Adult