Health Habit, Perceived Health Status and Physical Health Status of Young Korean and Korean-Chinese Women: A Comparative Study

Young-Ran Lee; Eun-Ok Im; Sook-Ja Yu

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2015.26.3.312

Journal List > J Korean Acad Community Health Nurs > v.26(3) > 1058392

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Lee, Im, and Yu: Health Habit, Perceived Health Status and Physical Health Status of Young Korean and Korean-Chinese Women: A Comparative Study

Original Article

J Korean Acad Community Health Nurs 2015;26(3):312-320.

Published online: 14 September 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2015.26.3.312

Health Habit, Perceived Health Status and Physical Health Status of Young Korean and Korean-Chinese Women: A Comparative Study

Young-Ran Lee^1,^*, Eun-Ok Im², Sook-Ja Yu³

¹Seoul Women's College of Nursing, Seoul, Korea

²School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, USA

³Yanbian University of Science and Technology, China

Corresponding author: Lee, Young-Ran, Seoul Women's College of Nursing, 38 Ganhodae-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03617, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2287-1731, Fax: +82-2-2287-1701, E-mail: agness_lee@yahoo.co.kr

Received 5 June 2015 Revised 3 September 2015 Accepted 23 September 2015

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

Purpose:

The purpose of this study was to compare health habit, physical health status, and perceived health status between young Korean and Korean-Chinese women.

Methods:

This study was conducted as a cross-sectional comparative survey. For this study, 114 Korean women were recruited in Seoul, South Korea and 64 Korean-Chinese women in Jilin Province, China through convenience sampling.

Results:

A positive correlation was found between health habit and perceived health status. Perceived health status, WHR, body density, flexibility, and muscle endurance were significantly lower in Korean women than in Korean-Chinese ones. Knee flexion and ankle dorsal flexion was significantly higher in Korean women than in Korean-Chinese ones.

Conclusion

Further investigation is required to compare the two different groups that share the same ethnicity and similar culture but were born into different countries. A study such as this may provide answers regarding the influence of migrated transition on health.

Keywords: Chinese, Habit, Health status, Korea, Women

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Table 1.

Socio-demographic Characteristics of the Subjects

Variables	Categories	Korean (114)	Korean Chinese (64)	t	p
Variables	Categories	n (%) or M±SD	n (%) or M±SD	t	p
Age (year)		20.8±1.57	20.3±1.32	2.04	.042
Height (cm)		162.0±4.90	158.3±4.54	5.01	＜.001
Body weight (kg)		53.6±6.27	51.6±6.32	2.03	.044
Waist circumference (cm)		70.0±6.51	75.4±7.31	5.39	＜.001
Hip circumference (cm)		92.6±5.26	92.0±4.33	0.74	.461
Religion	Protestant	39 (34.2)	37 (57.8)	22.30	＜.001
	Catholic	22 (19.3)	1 (1.6)
	Buddhism	12 (10.5)	0 (0.0)
	Unaffiliated	41 (36.0)	26 (40.6)

Table 2.

Comparisons of Health Habits, Perceived Health Status, Body Composition, and Physical Health Status

Variables	Korean (114)	Korean Chinese (64)	t	p
Variables	M±SD	M±SD	t	p
Health habits (score)	63.2±14.81	63.9±14.11	0.30	.762
Perceived health status (score)	68.9±14.95	71.0±16.69	0.82	.044
Body mass index (kg/m²)^†	20.4±2.22	20.6±2.57	0.56	.575
Waist hip ratio	0.75±0.06^‡	0.81±0.56^‡	7.32	＜.001
Body density	1.034±0.01^‡	1.040±0.01^‡	2.91	.004
Percent body fat (%)	28.7±5.62	26.2±4.90	2.93	.004
Ventral flexibility (cm)	11.7±6.54	16.4±7.01	4.54	＜.001
Power of muscle (kg)
Right hand's grasp	25.7±3.64	25.8±3.79	0.21	.833
Left hand's grasp	23.6±3.83	24.6±3.78	1.73	.085
Knee flexion	34.6±14.38	28.5±11.01	2.90	.004
Knee extension	28.0±11.74	30.7±10.48	1.49	.140
Ankle dorsal flexion	27.6±11.01	23.0±9.99	2.73	.007
Ankle plantar flexion	26.6±11.52	26.0±7.84	0.36	.723
Muscle endurance
Sit-up test (times/min)	24.1±9.83	30.5±8.60	4.32	＜.001

^† Body weight (kg)²/height (m)²;

^‡ Marking down to two or three decimal places was used to show significant differences among the groups.

Table 3.

Correlations between BMI, WHR, Percent Body Fat, and Body Density

(N=178)

Variables	BMI	WHR	Body density	Body fat
Variables	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)
BMI	1
WHR	.47 (＜.001)	1
Body density	−.56 (＜.001)	−.20 (.013)	1
Body fat	.56 (＜.001)	.14 (.014)	−1.00 (＜.001)	1

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