Ultraprocessed Foods Associated With Depressive Symptoms Among Chinese Adolescents: Cross-Sectional Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Ultraprocessed food (UPF) consumption is very common among adolescents. Previous studies have suggested an association between UPF consumption and adolescent mental health problems, but studies on multiethnic adolescents in China are rare. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the association between UPF consumption and depressive symptoms in multiethnic adolescents in Yunnan Province, China. METHODS: A cluster sampling of 8500 middle school students from 11 counties in Yunnan Province was conducted. The Chinese version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 was administered to assess depressive symptoms, and a food frequency questionnaire was used to collect UPF consumption data. A generalized linear model was used to analyze the association between UPF consumption and depressive symptoms, and a restricted cubic spline was used to fit the correlation plot. The association analysis was performed after adjusting for demographic and confounding variables that might have influenced depressive symptoms. RESULTS: The detection rates of depressive symptoms in adolescents were 28.3% (2402/8500) for the sample, 25.5% (1069/4184) for males, and 30.9% (1333/4316) for females. After adjusting for confounding variables, instant food (all participants: β=.22, 95% CI 0.13-0.32; P<.001; males: β=.15, 95% CI 0.03-0.27; P=.01; females: β=.29, 95% CI 0.15-0.43; P<.001), carbonated beverage (β=.20, 95% CI 0.12-0.29; P<.001; β=.15, 95% CI 0.04-0.26; P=.006; β=.29, 95% CI 0.16-0.43; P<.001;), energy beverage (β=.21, 95% CI 0.10-0.32; P<.001; β=.22, 95% CI 0.08-0.36; P=.002; β=.22, 95% CI 0.04-0.40; P=.01), and other beverage (β=.24, 95% CI 0.14-0.34; P<.001; β=.21, 95% CI 0.08-0.35; P=.002; β=.25, 95% CI 0.10-0.41; P=.001) consumption were associated with depressive symptoms for all participants, males, and females, respectively. Females were more sensitive to the association between UPF consumption and depressive symptoms. Moreover, female interaction with instant foods (β=.31, 95% CI 0.18-0.44; P<.001), carbonated beverages (β=.27, 95% CI 0.15-0.39; P<.001), energy beverages (β=.18, 95% CI 0.01-0.35; P=.04), and other sugar-sweetened beverages (β=.17, 95% CI 0.02-0.32; P=.03) was associated with depressive symptoms, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicated that UPF consumption was related to depressive symptoms in Yunnan multiethnic adolescents. Health education and behavioral interventions that reduce UPF consumption could protect adolescents from depressive symptoms.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".