Weight status and psychosomatic complaints in Swedish adolescent boys and girls: examining the buffering role of family support.

Sammanfattning: Introduction: Psychosomatic complaints have increased among adolescents in recent decades, as well as overweight and obesity rates, which have become a public health issue. The associations between weight status and psychosomatic complaints are not clear, therefore further research is needed. The aim of this study was to explore the associations between weight status and psychosomatic complaints among Swedish adolescents, and the possible buffering effect of family support. Methods: This study was based on cross-sectional data of the Swedish Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) of 2017/18, that included 3,133 boys and girls aged 11, 13 and 15 years. Weight status was based on self-reported information on weight and height, which was used to calculate body mass index (BMI) and construct the categories “non-overweight”, “overweight” and “obese”. Psychosomatic complaints were based on information on the frequency of eight different complaints, that was summed to an index. Family support was measured by three items that described the received support. An index was constructed which was dichotomized into two categories, low and high family support. Gender, age and family affluence were included as covariates. Linear regression analyses were performed to investigate the associations between weight status and psychosomatic complaints. Interaction analyses were used to see whether family support moderates the main association. Additional family support- and sex-stratified analyses were conducted. Results: The results revealed that obesity is associated with higher levels of psychosomatic complaints. Being non-overweight or overweight did not show any significant associations with the outcome. Girls reported higher levels of psychosomatic complaints compared to boys. Family support could buffer against obese girls’ psychosomatic complaints. Conclusions: The findings of this study highlight the importance of public health actions to prevent childhood obesity and additionally the significant role of family support in decreasing obese adolescents’ psychosomatic complaints. Furthermore, more research is needed for better understanding of these associations.