Disturbed eating tendencies, health-related behaviors, and depressive symptoms among university students in Korea

Background & aims: There were few studies to investigate the related factors of depression among Korean students. Therefore, this study examined disturbed eating tendencies, health-related behaviors, and depressive symptoms among university students in Korea. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey on a total of 637 students (279 men and 358 women), and the Korean version of the Beck depression rating scale (K-BDI) was used to evaluate the students’ depression status. Results: Of the 637 students, 419 (65.8%) had no depressive symptoms (normal: K-BDI < 10), whereas 136 (21.4%: K-BDI 10–16), 69 (10.8%: K-BDI 17–29), and 13 (2.0%: K-BDI ≥ 30) had mild, moderate, and severe depressive symptoms, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression showed that depressive symptoms (K-BDI ≥ 10) were associated with female gender (odds ratio [OR] = 1.86, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.26 to 2.76; p =.002), high level of life stress (OR = 4.37, 95% CI = 2.23 to 8.55; p <.001), and disturbed eating behaviors (Korean version of Eating Attitude Test-26 ≥ 20; OR = 5.14, 95% CI = 2.52 to 10.5; p <.001). In contrast, depressive symptoms were inversely associated with a high body image satisfaction (OR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.20 to 0.68; p =.001) and self-esteem (self-esteem score ≥ 30) (OR = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.20 to 0.43; p <.001). Conclusions: This study confirmed that students with depressive symptoms tended to have disturbed eating behaviors, low body image satisfaction, low self-esteem, and high levels of stress.