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Doo, Lee, Park, and Song: Relationship among Life Stress, Dietary Behaviors and High-fat Snack Intake in High School Students in Gyeonggi Area
Research Article

Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2017; 22(4): 289-297.

Published online: 31 August 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2017.22.4.289

Relationship among Life Stress, Dietary Behaviors and High-fat Snack Intake in High School Students in Gyeonggi Area

Seorin Doo1, Youngmi Lee2, Haeryun Park2, Kyunghee Song2

1Department of Food Service and Clinical Nutrition, Ajou University Hospital, Suwon, Korea.

2Department of Food and Nutrition, Myongji University, Yongin, Korea.

Corresponding author: Kyunghee Song. Department of Food and Nutrition, Myongji University, 116, Myongji-ro, Cheoin-gu, Yongin, Gyeonggi 17058, Korea. Tel: (031) 330-6206, Fax: (031) 330-6200, khsong@mju.ac.kr

Received 4 August 2017       Revised 24 August 2017       Accepted 24 August 2017

Copyright © 2017 The Korean Society of Community Nutrition

The Korean Society of Community Nutrition

(open-access):

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

Stress during adolescence is related to undesirable nutritional intake and negatively affects the growth and development. This study was performed to investigate the relationship among life stress, dietary behaviors and the intake of high-fat containing snacks in male and female high school students in Gyeonggi-do area.

Methods

The subjects were 700 high school students (350 males, 350 females) in Gyeonggi-do from July to September 2014 and the survey was performed by using questionnaire that included general characteristics, dietary behaviors, high-fat containing snacks intake, and daily life stress.

Results

There was a gender difference in health-related life style and dietary behaviors, and the life stress was significantly higher in female students than in male students. For health-related life style, exercise frequency, hours of sleep and conversation time with parents had significantly negative correlations with life stress, while smoking and perceived stress had significantly positive correlations with life stress. For dietary behaviors, the frequency of eating-out had a significantly negative correlation with life stress, while the changes in amount of meal intake under stress had a significantly positive correlation with life stress. The fat intake of ‘high-stress group’ was significantly higher and high-fat containing snacks consumed by this group consisted of cookies, honey bread and fried foods.

Conclusions

It is necessary to develop appropriate programs for the emotional stability and stress relief of adolescents that provide continuous nutrition education focused on proper snack intake, desirable dietary behaviors and nutritional aspects.

Keywords: Life stress, dietary behaviors, high-fat containing snacks, high school students

Figures and Tables

Table 1

General characteristics of the subjects by gender

kjcn-22-289-i001

1) Mean ±SD

2) BMI < 18.5: Underweight, 18.5 − 22.9: Normal, 23.0 ≤: Overweight

3) N (%), by χ2-test

**: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001

Table 2

Dietary behaviors of the subjects by gender

kjcn-22-289-i002

1) N (%), by χ2-test

*: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001

Table 3

Monthly consumption frequency of fat containing snacks of the subjects by gender

kjcn-22-289-i003

1) Never: 0, 1~3 times/month: 2.0, 1~2/week: 6.4, 3~4 times/week: 15.0, 5~6 times/week: 23.5, once/day: 30.0, 2 times/day ≤: 60.0

2) Mean ±SD

*: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001

Table 4

Life stress score and distribution by the life stress levels of the subjects

kjcn-22-289-i004

1) Mean ±SD

2) By t-test,

3) N (%), by χ2-test

*: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01

Table 5

The correlations among health-related life style, dietary behaviors and life stress of the subjects

kjcn-22-289-i005

1) H1: Exercise frequency (times/week), H2: Smoking, H3: Hours of sleep (hours/day), H4: Perceived stress, H5: Conversation with parents (minutes/day), D1: Meal frequency (times/day), D2: Meal regularity, D3: Time of eating a meal (minutes), D4: Usual amount of meal intake, D5: Frequency of eating out, D6: Frequency of snack intake, D7: Changes in the amount of meal intake under stress

2) Pearson's correlation coefficient

*: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001

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ORCID iDs

Kyunghee Song
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9549-0716

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