the relationship between physical growth indices and maternal employment in children aged 7 to 11 years

Background: it has been reported that differences in the level of education and employment status of the parents can affect the children’s growth index. objectives: given the importance of children’s optimal growth rate on society’s health and since parental employment can alter children’s growth index, we decided to conduct a comparative study of the growth indices of children aged 7 to 11 years with working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. methods: a sample of 300 male students aged 7 to 11 years was selected using convenience sampling. the children’s height, weight, and bmi were measured by a trained individual twice to reduce error. after collecting the required information from 300 students, data analysis was performed in spss 24 and microsoft excel using the analysis of independent t-test at the significance level of 0.05. results: of the 300 students examined, 21.7% (n = 65) were 7 years old, 20.7% (n = 62) were 8 years old, 21% (n = 63) were 9 years old, 20% (n = 60) were 10 years old, and 16.7% (n = 50) were 11 years old. moreover, 225 mothers stayed at home, and 75 worked. based on the independent t-test to compare the bmi of the children whose mothers stayed at home and those whose mothers worked, a significant difference was observed only in children aged 7 years, whose bmi was lower in the working mothers’ group (p = 0.02). conclusions: it seems that children who have stay-at-home mothers tend to have better growth than those whose mothers work at certain ages.