Parental rearing attitudes and health-related lifestyle of university students

Using a written questionnaire survey of 200 first-year university students, we investigated associations between parental rearing attitudes and health-related lifestyle. Participants completed the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI; Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) and the Health Practice Index (HPI; Hagihara & Morimoto, 1991). We found that more female respondents with unhealthy lifestyles perceived their parents as having been overprotective. No such correlation was found for male respondents. These findings suggest that, particularly for females, health-related lifestyle may be related to perceived parental rearing attitudes. By contrast, for males, depression correlated with low maternal care or overprotection.