The purpose of this study was to evaluate the nutritional knowledge and dietary behaviors of middle school students according to their mother’s employment status. Of all 453 subjects, 52.1% were boys, and 67.5% of the mothers were employed. The total score of nutritional knowledge was 8.0 out of 10 for students with a non-working mom and 7.7 for those with a working mom, showing no significant difference. Among the 20 nutritional knowledge questions, correct answer rates for “lots of fruits may be eaten because of not gaining weight” (72.6% vs. 81.6%, p<0.05) and “eating raw carrots is better than eating fried ones with oil” (34.6% vs. 44.9%, p<0.05) were significantly higher in students with a working mom. The regularity of meals showed a significant difference according to the mother’s employment, indicating that responses of “very regular” (62.4% vs. 72.1%) were high among students with a non-working mom and responses of “skipping breakfast” (31.4% vs. 19.7%) were higher in students with a working mom (p<0.05). The number of snacks a day was also significantly different according to the mother’s employment, showing that 12.8% of the students with a working mom and only 3.4% of them with a non-working mom did not eat snacks at all (p<0.05). These results reveal no significant difference in middle school students’ nutritional knowledge according to their mother’s employment status; however, the students whose mother had a job were more likely to have more undesirable dietary behaviors such as irregular meals and snacking.

This study was conducted to investigate the nutrition knowledge, dietary attitudes, dietary behaviors, smartphone usagerelated dietary habits, and health-related lifestyles of higher grade students in elementary school according to risk level of smartphone overdependence. Subjects were 286 fifth and sixth grade students of elementary school in the Siheung and Ansan areas. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS v. 20.0. Based on scores of S-scale (smartphone overdependence scale for adolescents), subjects who used smartphone were classified into an overdependence group (ODG, n=52) and a normal group (NG, n=234). The ODG showed a significantly longer usage time than NG on both weekdays and weekends (p<0.001). There were no significant differences in total scores of nutrition knowledge between the ODG and NG. Average total scores of dietary attitude and dietary behavior in the ODG were significantly lower than in the NG (p<0.001). There were higher risks of ODG for skipping meals (OR=8.3, 95% CI=4.027-17.099), changing eating speed (OR=4.4, 95% CI=2.209-8.822), and changing meal amount due to smartphone usage (OR=2.9 95% CI=1.233-6.623). Therefore, education programs are needed to ensure proper dietary behaviors and habits among smartphone overdependent elementary school students.

This study was conducted to analyze the dietary lifestyle of local Chinese consumers and to classify dietary characteristics according to their dietary lifestyle factors and dietary behaviors. This investigation was conducted for 1 month from 1 January 2017 targeting 300 adult males and females living in China using the online survey company surveymonkey. Four factors relating to dietary lifestyle were identified, gourmet factor, healthy factor, convenience factor and economic factor, and these were grouped into 4 clusters according to their dietary lifestyle factor scores. Group 1, the gourmet economy group, showed a high percentage of living alone and a high frequency of eating out, but a relatively low percentage of three regular meals per day. Their dietary lifestyle was sensitive to gourmet factors and economic factors, but less sensitive to health and convenience factors. Group 2, the wide interest group, contained a high percentage of individuals in their 30s, as well as more highly educated individuals and a higher income than other groups. Because their dietary lifestyle scores tended to be higher than those of other groups, they sought a variety of new foods and gourmet meals for enjoyment of dining and life, as well as well-being food materials and foods related to health. Group 3, the health economic group, constituted a family-type consumer group with lower income level than the other groups. Members of this group were seeking health food and natural food in their dietary lifestyle and tended to pursue a high economic profit ratio when purchasing food. Finally, group 4 showed a relatively higher percentage of women over 30 and individuals with a college level or higher education than the other groups. This group was more interested in health and taste than price and convenience, and showed the highest LOHAS orientation among middle aged Chinese women. Moreover, members of this group directly utilized their knowledge regarding nutrition in real life.

The purpose of this study was to compare dietary self-efficacy for sodium intake reduction and dietary behaviors by eating areas. Subjects (797 males and 767 females) were classified according to perceived dietary habit levels related to sodium intake (lowest: ≤10 (n=434), low: 11~≤13 (n=471), high: 14~≤15 (n=360), highest: 16≤ (n=299)) using an online survey with a sample that was geographically representative of the population. The highest group was significantly younger and had a higher student proportion than the lowest group. Dining contexts regarding home led to a significantly higher sodium intake in the highest group, but it was eating out for the lowest group. The highest group had a significantly lower intention to reduce sodium intake compared to the lowest group. In the home cooked meals, the highest group displayed a significantly lower cooking frequency, less effort with respect to a low sodium diet and cooking habits related to sodium intake as compared to the lowest group. Also, regarding eating out and food service, the highest group exhibited significantly lower efforts and dietary behaviors to reduce sodium intake than the lowest group. The dietary score for sodium reduction behavior in the highest group was significantly lower compared to the lowest group, for home cooked meals, eating out, as well as food service. Thus, dietary guidelines and nutrition education for the reduction of sodium intake by eating areas need to be developed and provided.

This study was performed to investigate the nutrition knowledge, dietary attitudes, and dietary behaviors among high school students by gender. The subjects were 275 students (127 male, 148 female) in Incheon metropolitan area. Selfadministered questionnaires consisted of general characteristics and anthropometric data, nutrition knowledge, dietary attitudes, and dietary behaviors. The average score of nutrition knowledge was significantly higher in female subjects (9.4) compared to male subjects (8.2) (p<0.01). Male subjects had a higher score for dietary attitudes than female subjects (p<0.001). Frequency of meals was significantly higher in male subjects compared to female subjects (p<0.05). Duration of meal time in male subjects was significantly higher (‘5-10 minutes’) compared to female subjects (p<0.001). Unbalanced diet was significantly higher in female subjects (66.3%) compared to male subjects (48.9%) (p<0.01). Male subjects showed significantly higher consumption frequency of ‘dairy’ (p<0.001) and ‘beans’ (p<0.001) compared to female subjects. For snack consumption, male subjects showed higher consumption frequency of ‘nuts’ (p<0.001), ‘soda’ (p<0.05), ‘fast foods’ (p<0.001), and ‘ramyeon’ (p<0.01), but lower consumption frequency of ‘biscuits and bakery’ (p<0.01) compared to female subjects. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a systemic nutrition education program for high school students by gender.

The purpose of this study was to analyze University student’s dietary behavior for processed foods and recognition on food nutrition labelling according to the degree of health concern. For this study, 302 University students in Gyeonggi region was surveyed by questionnaire from May in 2016 and it included the questions about general matters, dietary behavior on processed foods, and the food nutrition label system. It was analysed by SPSS win 23.0 program. And the results are as follows. According to the result of the factor analysis, the preference of processed foods were showed 3.21~3.97. There were significant differences in milk and milk products preference according to health concern (p<0.05). Also frequency of processed foods was shown significant differences in milk and milk products, noodles, beverage, and fast food (p<0.05), whereas no significant differences were found in meat products, snack, bread and frozen food (p>0.05). Also, the processed food purchase consideration according to health concern was shown significant differences in nutrition, origin, manufacturing company (p<0.05), whereas no significant differences were found in taste, price, exterior, brand, and shelf life (p>0.05). Thus, it is necessary to do continuing public relations and to provide more opportunities for nutrition education so that the University students may obtain right dietary behavior on processed foods and the system of food nutrition indication be established properly.

Increasing sugar intake of population has become a nutritional issue in Korea. Sweet taste perception may be related to behaviors such as eating sweet food including high sugars and total sugar intake. This study aimed to evaluate objective and subjective sweet taste perception and the association among objective sweet taste perception, dietary behaviors related to eating sweet snack food including high sugar, and total sugar intake from the snacks. Participants were 261 healthy female college students (mean age: 21.0±1.6 years), who were divided into three subgroups based on oral sweet taste evaluation using a sweet taste assessment tool provided by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety: sweet-seeker group (n=139), medium sweet-seeker group (n=54), and unsweet-seeker group (n=68). There was no significant difference in weight and body mass index (BMI) among the three groups; however, the sweet-seeker group had significantly higher sweet taste preference than that of the other groups. Though more people in the sweet-seeker group thought they tended to eat sweet foods than the medium sweet-seeker and unsweet-seeker groups, over half of the sweet-seekers did not think they tended to eat sweet foods. The sweet-seeker group was more likely to eat sweet snacks such as breads, chocolate products, sugar-sweetened milk, and so on than the unsweet-seeker group. Total sugar intake from the selected sweet snacks was 44.4 g for the sweet-seeker group, 34.4 g for the medium sweet-seeker group, and 28.0 g for the unsweet-seeker group with a significant difference. These results indicated the absence of relationship between objective sweet taste perception and the obesity index; however, significant associations were detected among objective sweet taste perception, eating sweet snacks and total sugar intake from the snacks. We also found high disagreement between objective and subjective sweet taste perception of the subjects. The present study provided the novel insight that measuring objective sweet taste perception may be useful for assessing the risk of high sugar consumption and undesirable dietary behaviors.

This study investigated the effect of cooking class on improvement of eating behaviors and satisfaction with cooking activities in children. The questionnaires developed for this study were distributed to 380 mothers during June to August, 2011. A total of 286 questionnaires were used for analysis (81.7%), and frequency analysis, ANOVA, and χ2-test were completed using SPSS (version 14.0) software. The children with cooking experience (52.7%) showed more improvement of eating habits than children with no cooking experience (36.4%). Both types of children showed an ‘unbalanced diet’ with respect to eating habits. The overall satisfaction level was an average of 3.84±0.62. The effects after cooking activities varied for different aspects of improvement of eating habits: ‘Correcting unbalanced diet’ was 4.26±0.66, ‘nutrition knowledge’ was 4.06±0.70, ‘dining etiquette’ was 4.09±0.63, and ‘regular meals’ was 4.15±0.73. There was a significant difference between genders with regards to correcting unbalanced diet with vegetables (p<0.01). Ages from 10 to 12 were able to improve unbalanced diet with ‘grains’ (p<0.001), while ‘Kimchi’ (p<0.05) and ‘paste’ for ages from 10 to 12. In conclusion, cooking activities are regarded as effective in correcting unbalanced diet and eliciting positive changes in eating behavior.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sodium-related dietary attitudes, behaviors, and nutritional knowledge in university students according to the practice of dietary guidelines for Koreans established by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea. Based on the total practice score related to the dietary guidelines (PDG), we classified subjects into a “low practice of the dietary guidelines (LPDG)” group (n=94, male=43, female=51) (total score of PDG ≤13) and a “high practice of the dietary guidelines (HPDG)” group (n=56, male=32, female=24) (total score of PDG >13). Subjects were asked about general characteristics, lifestyle, salt-related dietary attitudes, behaviors, and nutritional knowledge using a questionnaire. The LPDG group had more subjects who were breakfast skippers (p<0.001) compared to the HPDG group. The LPDG group (31.26) had a significantly lower score in terms of salt-related dietary attitudes compared to the HPDG group (33.77) (p=0.0042). The score for salt-related dietary attitudes was significantly higher in the HPDG (32.52) group than in the LPDG (29.91) group (p=0.0041). There was no significant difference in the total score for salt-related nutrition knowledge between the groups. The correlation analysis indicated that the dietary guidelines practice score had a positive correlation with the salt-related dietary attitude score (r=0.3593, p<0.0001) and the dietary attitude score (r=0.3443, p<0.0001) after adjustments for sex. These results show that the degree of adherence to the dietary guidelines for adults may be related to sodium-related dietary attitudes, behaviors, and nutrition knowledge.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between dietary behavior and temperament & character in preschool children, and to offer basic data that can be applied for nutrition education and counseling. A total of 211 parents of preschool children aged 3~5 years performed the Korean version of Preschool Temperament and Character Inventory (K-psTCI), a questionnaire based on Cloninger's seven-factor model of personality, along with a questionnaire about the dietary behaviors of their children. K-psTCI represented seven factors such as harm avoidance (HA), novelty seeking (NS), reward dependence (RD), persistence (P), self-directedness (SD), cooperativeness (CO), and self-transcendence (ST). The subjects were divided into either the high rank group or low rank group based on the mean score of each factor. The high rank group of HA showed significantly less physical activity and less appetite than the low rank group of HA. The children in the high rank of NS were more likely to have picky eating and a late night snack. The children in the low rank of SD or CO were more likely to have undesirable dietary behaviors, such as picky eating, too much snacking, and lower appetite than those in the high rank of SD or CO. In conclusion, individual temperament & character in preschool children may be associated with their dietary behavior, and understanding temperament & character in children may be important facts to screen and to develop an effective nutrition education program for children.