Association between eating at night and skipping breakfast with anxiety symptoms among freshman in colleges in Yunnan Province / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To study the association between eating at night and skipping breakfast with college students anxiety symptoms, and to provide reference basis for preventing and alleviating college students anxiety symptoms.@*Methods@#A cross sectional survey was conducted among 9 960 freshman from three universities in Kunming and Dali, Yunnan Province. The dietary frequency questionnaire was used to evaluate the dietary behavior of college students. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) was used to evaluate the anxiety symptoms of college students. The association of late night snack and breakfast skipping with the association of anxiety symptoms in college students used generalized linear model and Logistic regression model.@*Results@#The proportion of college students who reported eating at night and breakfast skipping in the last month was 72.5%(7 217/9 960) and 61.6%(6 131/9 960) respectively. The detection rate of anxiety symptoms in college students was 28.9%(2 875/9 960). There was a statistical significance between eating at night with anxiety symptoms( OR =1.40-2.54), and breakfast skipping with anxiety symptoms( OR =1.23-1.60)( P <0.05). The interaction between eating late at night and breakfast skipping was positively correlated with college students anxiety symptoms (multiplicative interaction, β=0.06, 95%CI=0.02- 0.10 , P<0.01; additive interaction, OR=2.00, 95%CI=1.59-2.51, P <0.01).@*Conclusion@#The study suggests that the college students who eat at night and frequently skipped breakfast are more likely to have anxiety symptoms. It suggested to promote the formation of healthy eating habits of college students, so as to reduce the occurrence of anxiety sympotoms.