Relationship between a Positive Perception toward Work and the Dietary Habits of Young Male Workers

The relationship was examined between a positive perception toward work and the dietary habits of young male workers to test the reliability and validity of a working life-related “quality of life” (QOL) scale. The subjects were 473 male employees in the age range from twenties to forties working for a medical equipment manufacturing company in Tokyo. A questionnaire survey was conducted in 2001, and the results were analyzed from responses provided by 61.9% of the subjects (n=293). The questionnaire covered quality of life, health condition, behavior, attitude, environment factors, dietary habits and working life factors.Three items were selected by a principal component analysis for a “positive perception toward work”. The “positive perception toward work” was scored on the scale of 4 for three items: from the most positive=4, to the least positive=1. The total mean of the score was 8.0, and Cronbach's α-coefficient was 0.68 for reliability. High concurrent validity was found by the relationship between the “positive perception toward work” score and the dietrelated and health-related quality of life scores. A path analysis presented two courses effecting the “positive perception toward work”. One was the working life course (dietary support at the workplace→job support→“positive perception toward the work”), while the other was the dietary habits course (dietary support at workplace→food consumption, diet-related attitudes→diet-related QOL→health condition→“positive perception toward work”).The “positive perception toward the work” scale could therefore be an effective measurement of working liferelated QOL in evaluating nutrition education for young male workers.