Profiles of lifestyle habits, emotional eating and body dissatisfaction in children and adolescents of the Global Health Program

When researchers set out to map the daily habits of hundreds of Canadian children and teenagers, they expected to find clusters of healthy and unhealthy behaviors. What they did not fully anticipate was how sharply those clusters would split along emotional lines, revealing that body dissatisfaction is not simply a female problem tied to poor habits, but a phenomenon that shifts its pattern depending on which lifestyle group a young person belongs to.

A new study published in BMC Pediatrics by Roseane de Fátima Guimarães of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and colleagues analyzed data from 581 children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years, drawn from the first wave of the Global Health Program, a quasi-experimental school-based initiative in Québec. The participants, whose average age was 14.05 years and of whom 44.1 percent were girls, completed online questionnaires covering sleep, diet, physical activity, screen time, emotional eating, and body dissatisfaction.

The team used a statistical technique called Latent Profile Analysis, which searches for hidden subgroups within a population based on patterns across multiple measured variables simultaneously. Rather than treating each habit in isolation, this method allows researchers to see how sleep, diet, exercise, and screen use cluster together in real individuals, producing profiles that reflect the complexity of actual behavior rather than artificial averages.

Three distinct profiles emerged from the analysis. The first, labeled sedentary, moderately healthy, included 163 participants characterized by low physical activity but reasonably balanced dietary and sleep habits. The second, the healthy profile, was the largest with 288 participants who showed favorable levels across most lifestyle domains. The third, the active, unhealthy profile, comprised 130 participants who were physically active but scored poorly on diet, sleep, or screen time, illustrating that exercise alone does not guarantee overall healthy routines.

When the researchers explored whether profile membership differed by sex, age, parental education level, or the number of years participants had spent in the program, most comparisons showed no meaningful differences. Sex, parental education, and program duration did not significantly shape which profile a child fell into. However, age did matter in one specific comparison: participants in the sedentary, moderately healthy profile were significantly older on average, at 14.28 years, than those in the healthy profile, whose mean age was 13.85 years, suggesting that older adolescents may be somewhat more likely to drift toward sedentary patterns even when their eating and sleeping habits remain moderately sound.

The most striking findings concerned the links between lifestyle profiles and psychological outcomes, specifically emotional eating, defined as eating in response to negative emotions rather than hunger, and body dissatisfaction, the negative evaluation of one’s own body shape and weight. Previous research on lifestyle habit subgroups in youth has often focused on female-only samples or treated sex merely as a control variable, leaving open the question of whether boys and girls experience these associations differently. The present study directly addressed that gap by testing whether sex moderated the relationship between profile membership and these psychological measures.

The moderation analysis revealed a pattern that challenges conventional assumptions. In the healthy and active, unhealthy profiles, girls reported significantly higher body dissatisfaction than boys, consistent with the widely documented vulnerability of adolescent girls to body image concerns. But in the sedentary, moderately healthy profile, the sex difference disappeared, and in fact boys in that group showed levels of body dissatisfaction comparable to those of girls in the other profiles. This finding suggests that boys who combine low physical activity with moderately healthy habits may carry a psychological burden that has often been overlooked in research and clinical practice focused primarily on girls.

From a technical standpoint, the study employed linear regression and moderation analyses alongside the Latent Profile Analysis, allowing the team to quantify both the direct associations between profile membership and psychological outcomes and the extent to which those associations varied by sex. The researchers found no significant moderation by sex for emotional eating, indicating that the relationship between lifestyle patterns and eating in response to emotions was similar for boys and girls across profiles. The sex-specific pattern applied specifically to body dissatisfaction, highlighting that the psychological consequences of lifestyle profiles are not uniform across outcomes.

The authors emphasize that these results underscore the need for tailored school and healthcare interventions that integrate sleep, nutrition, physical activity, and mental health rather than addressing each domain in isolation. Because the profiles show that habits cluster together, and because the psychological correlates of those clusters differ by sex, effective prevention programs cannot rely on one-size-fits-all messaging. Boys in sedentary groups may need targeted attention to body image, while girls across most profiles may benefit from support around body dissatisfaction regardless of how healthy their habits appear.

The study was supported by the Research Network on cardiometabolic health, diabetes and obesity, and received ethical approval from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Board. As the first wave of an ongoing quasi-experimental program, the research lays the groundwork for future analyses that will track how these profiles and their psychological associations evolve over time, offering a framework for understanding how daily routines and emotional well-being intertwine during the critical years of childhood and adolescence.

Subject of Research: Profiles of lifestyle habits, emotional eating and body dissatisfaction in children and adolescents of the Global Health Program

Article Title: Profiles of lifestyle habits, emotional eating and body dissatisfaction in children and adolescents of the Global Health Program

Article References: Guimarães, R. D. F., Lavoie, C., Doré, I., Barnett, T., Girard, S., & Carbonneau, N. (2026). Profiles of lifestyle habits, emotional eating and body dissatisfaction in children and adolescents of the Global Health Program. BMC Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-026-07606-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12887-026-07606-8

Keywords: Profiles, lifestyle, habits, emotional, eating, body, dissatisfaction, children, adolescents, Global, Health, Program