Abstract
Job-related chronic stress has been discussed as a risk factor for weight change and metabolic disorders. The current study was conducted to understand the situations in which stress-induced eating occurs among office workers and how workers perceive stress to influence their daily eating practices and weight change. In-depth, one-on-one interviews were conducted with office workers. Metropolitan areas in South Korea. Twenty-two office workers from thirteen companies participated in the study. Most participants mentioned that they often felt work-related stress and reported various levels of perceived stress, as measured with open-ended questions. The main sources of work stress were (i) the nature of job characteristics, (ii) performance evaluations and (iii) relationships within the organisation. Participants linked stress with increased food consumption and cravings for sweet, savoury and greasy foods. Many participants emphasised the links between multiple health behaviours and stress. Not only dietary choices but also alcohol consumption, sleeping difficulty and insufficient physical activity were related to coping with work stress and demands. Finally, most participants who perceived work stress believed that their weight gain in adulthood was triggered by work stress. It is necessary to consider promoting behavioural modifications to support weight management and providing a means for stress management and the minimisation of stress-inducing working environments for workers to maintain or achieve a healthy weight and to prevent chronic disease incidence.
Highlights
MethodsParticipants and recruitment Detailed information on the data collection methods is described elsewhere[35]
Qualitative data were collected from twenty-two office workers with various job characteristics and job grades from twelve companies in a metropolitan area of South Korea
The qualitative findings are presented in the following order: (i) circumstances in which office workers felt stressed in their daily working lives, (ii) the impact of perceived stress on eating behaviours, (iii) participants’ descriptions of stress and other health behaviours that led to weight change and (iv) participants’ perceptions of Interviewee Sex Age Job type
Summary
Participants and recruitment Detailed information on the data collection methods is described elsewhere[35]. One-on-one, indepth interviews were selected as the main data collection method due to their flexibility and appropriateness for exploring lived experiences[29,36]. A total of forty potential participants applied for the interview, and the researchers contacted twenty workers with various job grades, ages and sexes to maximise the variability. Four additional participants were recruited through the snowball sampling method[38]. These participants, who were underrepresented during the initial recruitment period, had higher job grades, were older and had flexible working hours. The research team reviewed the transcripts periodically, and recruitment was stopped when the research team agreed that there had been no new information gathered from the interviews. The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of Gangbuk Samsung Hospital (KBSMC 2013-01-142)
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