The relationship between perceived family conflicts and unhealthy lifestyles among adolescents: the interlocking mediating effect of mental health and school adaptation.

BACKGROUND: Globally, issues related to unhealthy lifestyle behaviors among teenagers have become a widely concerned topic. Family conflict perception, as one of the influencing factors of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors among teenagers, has received less attention due to its underlying pathway mechanism. Exploring the interlocking mediating role of mental health and school adaptation between perceived family conflicts and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors can provide new ideas for preventing unhealthy lifestyle behaviors among adolescents. METHOD: This study was designed as a cross-sectional study, and the data were derived from the Youth Health Database of the National Population Health Science Data Center (PHDA) in 2020-2021. After data sample selection and cleaning, a total of 9,114 participants were included in the study. The study used t-tests and ANOVA to test for demographic differences. Pearson correlation was used to test the correlation between research variables. The proposed mediation model was tested using the Hayes PROCESS macro in SPSS. RESULTS: Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors of adolescents were negatively correlated with perceived family conflicts (r = -0.27, p < 0.01) and school adaptation (r = -0.29, p < 0.01), and positively correlated with mental health (r = 0.30, p < 0.01). Mental health and school adaptation play a partial mediating role in perceiving the relationship between family conflicts and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. A high level of perception of family conflict is not only associated with the occurrence of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors among teenagers, but also has a negative impact on their mental health, thereby hindering the development of teenagers' adaptation to school and possibly resulting in the emergence of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. CONCLUSION: This study confirmed the chain mediating role of mental health and school adaptation between perceived family conflicts and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors among adolescents. This study enhances our understanding of the connection mechanism between family conflict perception and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors among adolescents. The improvement of teenagers' mental health and school adaptation level can reduce the possibility of the development of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors caused by the perception of family conflicts. This study provides information for the intervention of schools, social organizations and other entities in promoting the well-being of adolescents and preventing their unhealthy lifestyle behaviors.