SUPAG Insights – March 2025

STRESS-ASSOCIATING FACTORS AND BODY MASS INDEX AMONG SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS IN SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY
DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

YUSHABEL M. ROMAGOS

ABSTRACT

         The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant and unsettling transitions in our everyday lives. The Department of Education has since then coped with the new normal learning, in which some of our teachers have vented out their frustrations because of various stressful factors that have influenced them physically, psychologically, and emotionally. This descriptive correlational study determines significant correlations between BMI and five major variables: workplace conditions, perceived stress level, coping strategies, perceived social support, and mental well-being of senior high school teachers in Silliman University. The 42 full-time SHS teachers were surveyed. It is alarming that among the senior high school department faculty, only 38.10% are within the normal BMI category, and the rest are either overweight, obese, or underweight. This should be a concern since BMI indicates their health condition, which may affect their teaching performance. Through Spearman Rank Correlation analysis, the only factor that correlated with BMI is perceived social support (p=0.03). This, however, may not have any significant implication on the study as this can be interpreted as the higher the perceived social support score, the higher the BMI will be (R=0.32). It is also noted that most teachers experience moderate stress, while 9.52% have a high stress level. When the correlation between perceived stress level and the factors was analyzed, the results show that age (p=0.006), burdensome classroom responsibilities (p=0.005), maladaptive stress coping mechanisms (p=0.002), and mental well-being (p=0.00004) may have influenced BMI. Lastly, mental well-being bordered on being a good predictor for moderate/high stress (p=0.05) through predictive analytics.|

Keywords: Body mass index, stress, social support, working conditions, coping strategies, mental well-being, obesity, overweight, classroom responsibilities