Dietary quality linkage to overall competence at school and emotional disturbance in representative Taiwanese young adolescents: dependence on gender, parental characteristics and personal behaviors

Table 1 Basic characteristics of junior high school students by Overall Competence (OCS) (N = 1371)

Characteristics^a		OCS^b		P value
Characteristics^a	Overall	Z-score ≤ 6	Z-score > 6	P value
Participants (%)	1371 (100)	98 (5.9)	1273 (94.1)
Mean age in years (SE)	13.6 (0.1)	13.3 (0.1)	13.6 (0.1)	0.130
Gender (%)				0.042
Boys	51.7	61.3	51.1
Girls	48.3	38.7	48.9
Father’s ethnicity (%)				0.777
Fukienese	76.6	71.9	76.9
Hakka	13.0	15.8	12.8
Mainlander	8.3	9.2	8.2
Indigenes	2.2	3.2	2.1
Father’s educational level (%)				0.008
Secondary education and below	40.5	61.9	39.1
University and above	59.5	38.1	60.9
Mother’s educational level (%)				0.018
Secondary education and below	33.4	47.5	32.5
University and above	66.6	52.5	67.5
Household income (%)				<0.001
0–30,000 NTD/month^c	19.3	34.5	18.4
30,000–50,000 NTD/month	21.7	24.1	21.6
50,000–80,000 NTD/month	29.8	30.1	29.6
> 80,000 NTD/month	29.2	11.2	30.3
Ever smoking (%)				0.019
No	89.9	75.5	90.8
Yes	10.1	24.5	9.19
Drinking alcohol (%)				0.730
No	87.4	85.4	87.6
Yes	12.6	14.6	12.4
Read during weekdays (%)				0.010
0–1 (h/day)	45.6	67.2	44.3
1–3	42.0	30.0	42.8
≥ 3	12.4	2.9	13.0
Watch TV during weekdays (%)				0.006
0–1 (h/day)	58.1	33.9	59.7
1–3	33.7	53.2	32.5
≥ 3	8.13	12.9	7.8
Play computer games during weekdays (%)				0.064
0–1 (h/day)	62.3	48.8	63.2
1–3	29.2	37.6	28.7
≥ 3	8.45	13.6	8.1
Moderate or heavy physical activity (%)				0.734
0–30 (min/day)	26.0	24.7	26.1
≥ 30	74.0	75.3	73.9

^aCategorical variables are presented as percentage (%), and continuous variables are presented as mean (SE)
^bStudents with an OCS Z-score less than or equal to 6 were considered to have unfavorable overall school performance
^c1 US dollars = 30 NTD

ISSN: 1475-2891