The Relationship of Parental Mental Health and Dietary Pattern With Adolescent Mental Health

Today, ensuring people’s health and well-being has become a concern for societies. Health status results from an interaction of an individuals’ various psychological, social, and physical aspects. This study aims to investigate the relationship of parental mental health and dietary pattern with adolescent mental health. In this study, 250 high school students in Shiraz were selected using random cluster sampling. The samples were analyzed using the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). According to the findings, parental mental health explains 22% of the variance in children’s mental health, so that in simultaneous regression, physical dimensions, anxiety, social functioning, and depression predicted 13%, 24%, 11%, and 24% of the variance of criterion variables, respectively. No significant relationship was observed between dietary pattern and adolescent mental health dimensions. There was a significant negative relationship only between depression and vegetable intake. Moreover, fruit (r = 0.15, P < 0.05) and vegetable (r = 0.16, P < 0.05) intake had a significant relationship with parental mental health dimensions. Parents’ mental health and their psychological characteristics can be related to children’s mental health and affect their dietary intake patterns.