Differences in Overweight or Obesity, Changes in Dietary Habits after Studying Abroad and Sleep Quality by Acculturative Degree among Asian Foreign Students: A Cross Sectional Pilot Study

Miae Doo and Chunyang Wang
Additional contact information
Miae Doo: Department of Food and Nutrition, Kunsan National University, Daehak-ro 558, Gunsan 54150, Korea
Chunyang Wang: Department of Food and Nutrition, Kunsan National University, Daehak-ro 558, Gunsan 54150, Korea

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-9

Abstract: The number of foreign students is increasing worldwide, and they suffer from acculturation to different environments or cultures. This pilot study examined the difference in overweight or obesity, changes in dietary habits after studying abroad and sleep quality according to acculturative degree among 225 Asian foreign students in South Korea. Most subjects (61.8%) experienced a low acculturative degree. The change in dietary habits after studying abroad showed a significant difference according to the acculturative degree ( p < 0.001); however, there were no differences observed in sleep quality ( p = 0.090) and prevalence of overweight or obesity according to acculturative degree ( p = 0.101). Interestingly, a difference in the risk for being overweight or obese by sleep quality after being stratified into groups according to acculturative degree was observed. Among the groups with a low acculturative degree, subjects reporting poor sleep quality had a 2.875-fold (95% CI = 1.167–7.080) higher risk of being overweight or obese than those reporting good sleep quality. However, the risk of being overweight or obese was not different among the high acculturative group regardless of their sleep quality. The results showed that the degree of acculturation could influence the risk of being overweight or obese according to sleep quality among Asian foreign students.

Keywords: acculturative degree; dietary habits; foreign students; obesity; overweight; sleep pattern (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5370/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5370/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5370-:d:804423

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().