The Impact of Habit of Eating Breakfast and Physical Activity on Children Suicidal Behaviour

Abstract

Introduction: Youth suicide is one of the top three causes of death among age group between 15 and 24 years old. The known risk factors include depression, hopelessness, dysfunctional families, substance abuse, school failure and harassment. However, research reports in relation to the protective factors to prevent adolescent from suicidal attempts are still lacking. The purpose of this study is to detect (if any) the protective effect of physical activity and the habit of eating breakfast on children suicidal attempts. Methods: This study adopted a secondary data analysis approach, in which data was extracted from the 2013 Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance System to detect the association effect between children's physical activity level and the habit of eating breakfast with suicidal attempts. Results: The increase number of days of physical activity and the habit of eating breakfast were both significantly related to the declining trend in suicidal attempts (p<0.0001). Only the effect of habit of eating breakfast on suicidal behaviour remained a protective factor for suicidal attempts after the adjustment (p<0.001). Conclusions: Our results illustrate that the physical activity has a marginal effect on suicidal attempts among males only. After adjusting other risk factors, the habit of eating breakfast shows a strong effect on preventing children from having suicidal attempt and also suggests a dose effect for the days of eating breakfast. For a child who skips breakfast for a week would have 1.7 higher risk of suicidal attempt compared with another child who eats breakfast every day in a week.