An Analysis on Nutrition Knowledge Level and Food Preference according to the Food-related Lifestyle Tendency - Focus on Housewives in the Seoul and Gyeonggi area -
The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in nutritional knowledge and food preferences according to foodrelated lifestyle among 400 married women. Using the K-average clustering method, food-related lifestyles of subjects were categorized into three clusters: rational and diversity-oriented group, convenience-oriented group, and health-oriented group. The nutritional knowledge level and food preferences among three clusters were compared to each other using ANOVA test. The findings were summarized as follows: For the nutritional knowledge level, health-oriented group showed the highest mean score, whereas the lowest score was detected in the convenience-oriented group. The convenienceoriented group showed higher preferences for fish, meat, eggs, fruits, milk/dairy products, seaweed, grains, etc. among natural food than the other groups. Meanwhile, the rational and diversity-oriented group preferred legumes, and green vegetables, whereas the health-oriented group showed preferences for other vegetables. However, the convenience-oriented group reported more preferences for breads, noodles, pancakes, fried/stir-fried food, and processed food such as sausage, ham, and fast food, This study found that nutritional knowledge level and food preferences were significantly different according to food-related lifestyles of married women living in Seoul and Gyonggie areas. Thus, it is suggested that nutritional education targeting married women needs to be carefully designed by considering their food-related lifestyle.