Cross-lagged relationships among food insecurity, life satisfaction, and psychological distress in economically disadvantaged youth

This study aimed to investigate the longitudinal triadic relationships among food insecurity (FI), life satisfaction (LS), and psychological distress (PD) of adolescents with economic disadvantages. Data ( N = 1,173, M age = 13.2 years at T1) were derived from the Taiwan Database of Children and Youth in Poverty across three time points, namely, T1 (2013), T2 (2015), and T3 (2017). The study applied a random intercept cross-lagged path model to investigate between- and within-person associations among the three factors. Residual within-wave covariances pointed to intercorrelations among the three factors. We observed significant auto-regressive paths for the three factors at the within-person level, except for the one between FI at T2 and T3. Alternatively, reciprocal cross-lagged effects were observed between LS and PD, and FI predicted less PD. LS mediated the relationship between FI and PD, and likewise, PD mediated that between FI and LS. In conclusion, accounting for between- and within-person variances, the study highlighted the critical role of LS in psychological health among economically disadvantaged youth facing FI issues.