Sunghee Lee; Zhen Feng; Youngmee Lee

doi:10.5720/kjcn.2015.20.4.273

Articles

Page Path: HOME > Korean J Community Nutr > Volume 20(4); 2015 > Article

Research Article
The Relationship between Stress, Social Support and Healthy Diet Score among Chinese University Students in Korea: Sunghee Lee, Zhen Feng, Youngmee Lee; Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2015;20(4):273-280.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2015.20.4.273
Published online: August 30, 2015

¹Institute of Human Genomic Study, Korea University Ansan Hospital, Ansan, Korea.

²Department of Food & Nutrition, Graduate School of Gachon University, Seongnam, Korea.

Corresponding author: Youngmee Lee. Food and Nutrition, Gachon University, 342 SeongsamDaero, Sujeong-Gu, Seongnam, Gyonggi 13120, Korea. Tel: (031)750-5971, Fax: (031)750-5971, leeym@gachon.ac.kr

• Received: June 29, 2015 • Revised: August 7, 2015 • Accepted: August 18, 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.

121 Views
0 Download

prev next

Full Article

Download PDF

Abstract
REFERENCES

Abstract

Objectives
The study aimed to examine whether healthy diet score was associated with stress and social support among 472 Chinese college students in Korea.
Methods
The study participants were 472 (187 male, 285 female) Chinese college students in Gyeong-gi area. From April 2013 to Oct 2013, participants were asked to fill out questionnaires on healthy diet score (20 questions), stress (20 questions), and social support (20 questions). Each question was scored by a 5-point Likert scale (total scores of each questionnaire were ranged from 20 to 100). Questions on healthy diet were sub-categorized as 'Healthy food eating (HFE)', 'Healthy eating habits (HEH)', and 'Avoidance of unhealthy food (AUF)'. Reliability test was conducted with Cronbach's αlpha (α=0.79).
Results
Healthy diet score was higher in participants who stayed longer in Korea, who spoke Korean language fluently, and who assessed his or her own health status as very good. Adjusted means of healthy diet scores were estimated after adjusting for age, gender, body mass index, duration of staying, and Korean language fluency. According to tertile categories, participants with low tertile stress but high tertile social support showed the highest score of healthy diet (72.59±1.45), whereas participants with high tertile of stress but low tertile of social support had the lowest score of healthy diet (59.22±1.54). As for the three sub-categories of healthy diet score, the score of HFE increased as the score of social support increased.
Conclusions
Our findings suggested that social support system is beneficial to alleviate stress and to improve healthy diet score.
Keywords: stress; healthy diet; social support

REFERENCES

1. Center for Educational Statistics Information. Educational Statistics [Internet]. Number of Foreign Students in Higher Education Institute; 2014; cited 2015 May 18]. Available from: http://kess.kedi.re.kr/eng/index.
2. Ministry of Justice. Korea Immigration Service [Internet]. Statistics of Status Classified by Residence Status; 2013; cited 2015 Sep 05]. Available from: http://www.immigration.go.kr/HP/COM/bbs_003/ListShowData.do?strNbodCd=noti0096&strWrtNo=126&strAnsNo=A&strOrgGbnCd=104000&strRtnURL=IMM_6050&strAllOrgYn=N&strThisPage=1&strFilePath=imm/.
3. Ha JH. A qualitative study on Chinese students' adaptation to Korean college life. Korean J Couns Psychother 2008; 20(2): 473-496.
4. Kim HK, Son YJ, Lee MR, Lim KC, Chang HK, Han SJ. Predictors of acculturative stress among Chinese students in Korea. J Korean Acad Adult Nurs 2010; 22(2): 143-152.
5. Lee YS. The relationship between stress and health habits in industrial workers. Korean J Prev Med 1990; 23(1): 3342.
6. Hong KW. An explorative review on the psychological study of inter-culture interactions. Soc Sci Res 2002; 21(1): 179-218.
7. Kim DH, Kim HD. Stress-related socio-demographic factors and life style on male white collar workers. J Korean Soc Health Educ Promot 2002; 19(2): 45-55.
8. Angus J, Rukholm E, Onge R, Michel I, Nolan RP, Lapum J. Habitus, stress, and the body: the everyday production of health and cardiovascular risk. Qual Health Res 2007; 17(8): 1088-1102.Article PubMed PDF
9. Dennis JP, Markey MA, Johnston KA, Vander Wal JS, Artinian NT. The role of stress and social support in predicting depression among a hypertensive African American sample. Heart Lung 2008; 37(2): 105-112.PubMed PMC
10. Park JW. A study to development a scale of social support [Dissertation]. Yonsei University; 1985.
11. Oh K, Oh KO, Lee SJ, Kim JA, Jeong CJ, Kim HR. Psychometric evaluation of the Korean social support questionnaire. J Korean Acad Nurs 2008; 38(6): 881-890.PubMed
12. Kim WY, Cho MS, Lee HS. Development and validation of mini dietary assessment index for Koreans. Korean J Nutr 2003; 36(1): 83-92.
13. Chinese Nutrition Society. Nutritional Guideline [internet]. 2007; cited 2015 May 18]. Available from: http://dg.en.cnsoc.org/article/2007b.html.
14. Sandhu DS, Asrabadi BR. Development of an acculturative stress scale for international students: Preliminary findings. Psychol Rep 1994; 75(1): 435-448.PubMed
15. Lee SJ. Relations between the acculturative stress and belief system, social support of international student. J Yonsei Educ Res 1995; 9(1): 157-176.
16. Dubow EF, Ullman DG. Assessing social support in elementary school children: the survey of children's social support. J Clin Child Psychol 1989; 18(1): 52-64.
17. Kim KH. A survey on the relation between stress and nutrient intake in adults. Korean J Diet Cult 1999; 14(5): 507-515.
18. He J, Klag MJ, Wu Z, Qian MC, Chen JY, Mo PS. Effect of migration and related environmental changes on serum lipid levels in southwestern Chinese men. Am J Epidemiol 1996; 144(9): 839-848.
19. Moon KS. A study of dietary intake related to stress and anxiety among high school students [Master's thesis]. Korea University; 2004.
20. Kim M, Jung D, Park H. A study on perceived stress and dietary habits of female college students. Korean J Women Health Nurs 2008; 14(3): 181-188.
21. Ha KH. Stress and dietary life of college students in Daejeon area. J Korea Contents Assoc 2011; 11(11): 329-337.
22. Seo YJ, Kim MH, Kim MH, Choi MK. Status and relationships among lifestyle, food habits, and stress scores of adults in Chungnam. Korean J Community Nutr 2012; 17(5): 579-588.
23. Choi TI. Studies of acculturative stress of foreigners in Korea [Master's thesis]. Yonsei University; 2001.

Table 1

General Characteristics of the study participants (n=472)

1) Mean±SD 2) Korean language level was based on a Test of Proficiency in Korea (TOPIK); The full scores in 'Healthy diet score', 'Stress score', 'Social support score' were 100, 100, and 100 respectively.

ab: Different letters present statistical difference from Tukey-Kramer adjustment.

Table 2

Healthy diet scores of 20 questions according to three sub-categories (HFE, HEH, AUF) (n=472)

Each question (min 1, max 5)

Table 3

Correlation analysis (n=472)

1) Healthy Food Eating

2) Healthy Eating Habits

3) Avoidance of Unhealthy Food

^***: p < 0.001

Table 4

Association between healthy practice in diet and stress according to social support (n= 472)

1) P_trend indicated a significant trend on healthy diet score as the tertile range of social support according to stress score

2) Total, the sum of HFE, HEH, and AUF (min 20, max 100)

3) Lsmeans±standard error: adjusted for age, gender, body mass index, years of stay, and Korean language fluency

4) HFE, Healthy Food Eating (min 5, max 25)

5) HEH, Healthy Eating Habits (min 9, max 45)

6) AUF, Avoidance of Unhealthy Food (min 6, max 30)

Figure & Data

REFERENCES

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

PubReader

Cite

CITE: export Copy Download Format; Close

Download Citation

Download a citation file in RIS format that can be imported by all major citation management software, including EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks, and Reference Manager.

Format:

RIS — For EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks, and most other reference management software
BibTeX — For JabRef, BibDesk, and other BibTeX-specific software

Include:

Citation for the content below
Citation and abstract for the content below

The Relationship between Stress, Social Support and Healthy Diet Score among Chinese University Students in Korea

Korean J Community Nutr. 2015;20(4):273-280. Published online August 31, 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2015.20.4.273

XML Download

We recommend

The Relationship between Stress, Social Support and Healthy Diet Score among Chinese University Students in Korea

Table 1

General Characteristics of the study participants (n=472)

ab: Different letters present statistical difference from Tukey-Kramer adjustment.

Table 2

Healthy diet scores of 20 questions according to three sub-categories (HFE, HEH, AUF) (n=472)

Each question (min 1, max 5)

Table 3

Correlation analysis (n=472)

1) Healthy Food Eating

2) Healthy Eating Habits

3) Avoidance of Unhealthy Food

^***: p < 0.001

Table 4

Association between healthy practice in diet and stress according to social support (n= 472)

1) P_trend indicated a significant trend on healthy diet score as the tertile range of social support according to stress score

2) Total, the sum of HFE, HEH, and AUF (min 20, max 100)

3) Lsmeans±standard error: adjusted for age, gender, body mass index, years of stay, and Korean language fluency

4) HFE, Healthy Food Eating (min 5, max 25)

5) HEH, Healthy Eating Habits (min 9, max 45)

6) AUF, Avoidance of Unhealthy Food (min 6, max 30)

Table 1 General Characteristics of the study participants (n=472)

ab: Different letters present statistical difference from Tukey-Kramer adjustment.

Table 2 Healthy diet scores of 20 questions according to three sub-categories (HFE, HEH, AUF) (n=472)

Each question (min 1, max 5)

Table 3 Correlation analysis (n=472)

1) Healthy Food Eating

2) Healthy Eating Habits

3) Avoidance of Unhealthy Food

^***: p < 0.001

Table 4 Association between healthy practice in diet and stress according to social support (n= 472)

1) P_trend indicated a significant trend on healthy diet score as the tertile range of social support according to stress score

2) Total, the sum of HFE, HEH, and AUF (min 20, max 100)

3) Lsmeans±standard error: adjusted for age, gender, body mass index, years of stay, and Korean language fluency

4) HFE, Healthy Food Eating (min 5, max 25)

5) HEH, Healthy Eating Habits (min 9, max 45)

6) AUF, Avoidance of Unhealthy Food (min 6, max 30)