Abstract
Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between health information sources and eating behavior and physical activity among Japanese adults.
Methods: Participants were 898 Japanese male and female (average age 41.5 years) who had been registered with a social research company. The cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted via the Internet. The survey included items on health information sources as the independent variable, and eating behavior and physical activity as the dependent variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between health information sources and eating behavior and physical activity, after adjusting for age, education status, income, and number of families. The analyses were stratified by gender.
Results: As the sources of health information magazines (OR = 1.70, 95% CI = 1.01, 2.86) and family (OR = 1.98, 95% CI = 1.05, 3.73) were positively associated with eating breakfast among the male. Newspapers (OR = 1.68, 95%CI = 1.04, 2.71) and family (OR = 2.40, 95%CI = 1.35, 4.27) were positively associated with eating well-balanced meals among the female. Magazines (OR = 1.77, 95%CI = 1.07, 2.95) and the Internet (OR = 1.55, 95%CI = 1.03, 2.35) were more likely to provide recommendations for physical activity among the male.
Conclusions: These results suggest that useful channels for the promotion of eating behavior are family and magazines among the male and family and newspapers among the female, and that health information obtained from magazines and the Internet is useful to promote physical activities among men.
