A Study on the Stress and the Dietary Habits of Elementary School Children by Mother's Employment Status

Oh, Seunghee; Hyun, Whajin; Lee, Hongmie; Park, Haeryun; Lim, Hyunjin; Song, Kyunghee

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the stress and the dietary habits of elementary school children and assess the associations with mother's employment status. The subjects were 423 students of 5th and 6th grade students (210 boys and 213 girls) in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do. Two hundred fifty-two mothers had some kinds of job and 171 mothers were housewives. The students had stress the most from their studies/schoolwork (M = 2.37), while the least from "teacher/school" (M=1.51). The average stress score of the subjects was 1.76. The average score of dietary habits was 3.43. More specifically, the statement "not skipping breakfast" had the highest score (M = 4.04) and the statement "not substituting cereals, breads or drink milk for any meal" had the lowest score. Students with employed mothers had higher stress level than students with unemployed mothers. Students with employed mothers who have blue color job showed the lower dietary habits score than those with employed mothers who had other types of job. Students of employed mothers who go to school at dawn showed the lowest dietary habits score. In both employed and unemployed mothers, the stress score of students negatively correlated with the score of dietary habits. It was important for the mother to be at home when the students go to school and return. Based on this study, mothers should be aware of the stress level of their children get depending on their employment status. They should also provide their children to have good dietary habits and nutritional education regularly.