As the three principles for a healthy lifestyle, the Japanese government recommends that all children maintain a balanced diet, appropriate physical activity, and enough sleep. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between absences from school due to the common cold as associated with healthy lifestyle characteristics among school-aged children, using a comprehensive index of diet, exercise, and sleep.
We conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire survey that collected data on lifestyle habits and a 1-day dietary record among 168 students aged 6 to 7 attending three public elementary schools. Common cold-related absences from school during the first semester were extracted from each student’s school health records. The healthy lifestyle index (HLI) score was calculated for each lifestyle domain (diet, exercise, and sleep). Participants for whom all three domain scores were above the median were assigned to the high HLI group (n=60) ; all others were assigned to low HLI group (n=108). Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between common cold-related absences from school and HLI.
Fifty-nine students (35.1%) had one or more common cold-related absences from school during the first semester. Relative to the low HLI group, the odds ratio for common cold-related absences was 0.372 (95% CI ; 0.171-0.812) for the high HLI group.
This suggests that students living a healthy lifestyle were at a lower risk of being absent from school due to the common cold.
