This study investigated the general information, unbalanced diet, and dietary habits of 86 children in Daegu. The research was undertaken to analyze the current state of diet and dietary habits of children, and to provide basic data for nutrition education. The results reveal that younger children have a more unbalanced diet. Children dislike side-dishes the most. Furthermore, due to the longer time taken to consume food, parents persuade children to eat quickly. Children were also determined to have a high intake of foods and drinks containing sugar; beverages containing sugar are consumed 1-2 times a week by 5-year-olds, and once daily by 6- and 7-year-olds. The results of this study can be applied to provide basic data for nutritional education, and assist in the development of dietary programs for young children.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cooking activities on the unbalanced dietary food habits of elementary school students and develop the effective cooking activity program for the improvement of unbalanced dietary behaviors as well as the food intake and menu acceptance. The subjects of this study were 256 elementary school students. The cooking activity group and control group were consisted of 128 students of 3rd & 5th grader each. Both cooking activity and the control group took the same 1-hour nutritional theory based class for 10 sessions. Only Cooking activity (CA) group took additional 10 sessions of 1-hour cooking class. Programs for cooking activity were developed and 10 cooking activity sessions were taken place for 4 months. The questionnairs were used to evaluate the effect of the cooking activities over the intake of food group, unbalanced dietary behavior, eating attitudes, menu acceptance before and after the completion of all the cooking activities. Cooking activities affect the unbalanced dietary behaviors and the intake of food groups. Fish, cereals, milk products, fruits, potatoes, vegetables were more eaten by CA group than control group. Eating attitudes and unbalanced dietary behaviors of CA group are also improved significantly than control group. From these results, it was concluded that cooking activities had the positive effect on the improvement of unbalanced dietary food habits over vegetables, cereals, fish, milk product and fruits as well as the unbalanced dietary behaviors of the elementary school children.

The purpose of this study was to develop nutrition education program that promotes eating behavior of preschool children. 118 parents of preschool children were surveyed to understand of children's food preferences and prejudices. The preference for vegetable showed the lowest score(2.345) and fruit was the favorite food(4.11). These results imply the consequence of teaching balanced diet with emphasizing vegetables for preschoolers. Thus, nutrition education program including teaching material were developed to provide the preschoolers with cognitive, affective, and psychomotor activities in order them to the familiar with vegetables. The program were consisted of following five parts: 1. Read-A-Story includes six stories with follow-up activities. 2. Grow-A-Plant gives instructions for growing vegetables. 3. Play-A-Game stimulates children's imagination and learning. 4. Take-A-Trip suggests places to visit that grow, sell, and prepare vegetables. 5. Eat-A-Treat presents easy ways to prepare and enjoy vegetables. Twenty one-Standardized recipes for vegetable dishes were also developed for preschooler's luncheon and snack in daycare center.