Associations of Physical Activity with Perception of Stress and Self-rated Health in Korean Female Students with Early Menarche

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between regular Physical Activity (PA), perception of stress, and self-rated health in Korean female students with early menarche based on the 10th (2014) Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBS) data, targeting a total of 1,845 female students. In order to analyze the relationship between PA, perception of stress, and self-rated health, we performed complex sample design logistic regression to calculate Odds Ratio (OR) and Confidence Interval (CI) after adjusting for school grades, depression, academic achievement, suicidal ideation, current smoking, current alcohol consumption, and family socio-economic status. The results of this study were as follows. The female students who did not participate in regular physical activity showed higher OR values in the perception of stress and lower OR values in the self-rated health variable compared to participants in regular physical activity. These findings suggest that encouraging to participate in regular PA would be effective stress management and self-rated health improvement to female students with early menarche.