This study aimed to assess the nutritional quality of breakfast among Korean school-aged children and adolescents depending on eating together as a family, based on the 2013-2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey. One day 24-hour recall data of 1,831 children and adolescents aged from 6 to 17 years were collected. The nutritional quality of breakfast was analyzed and compared between Family Breakfast Group (FBG, n=1,410) and Eating-alone Breakfast Group (EBG, n=421). The results showed that age, family structure, number of family members, and frequency of breakfast were associated with eating breakfast as a family. The calorie intake from breakfast explained 19% and 16% of the daily intake for FBG and EBG, respectively. The percentages of children and adolescents consuming Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin C, Niacin, and Iron less than 1/4 of the Estimated Average Requirements were significantly lower in FBG than in EBG. The average numbers of serving for “Grains” and “Vegetables” food groups and the average Dietary Diversity Score were significantly higher in FBG than in EBG. Overall, the results indicated that eating breakfast as a family is positively associated with nutritional quality of breakfast among Korean school-aged children and adolescents.

To study the importance of family meals in adolescents, 251 middle school students were surveyed through a questionnaire on their family meal patterns, dietary behaviors, food intake, and life satisfaction. The family meals were defined as "meals with all family members living together" by 62.2% of the students. For the frequency of family meals, 42.2% of the students replied having family meals "More than once a day". A common reason for the difficulty in having a family meal was a "lack of time" (73.3% of the students). Students tended to respond that they would be most fond in having meals with entire family members with traditional Korean food. Having more frequent family meals was found to benefit both individual and familial dietary behavior. In terms of food intake according to the frequency of family meals, the group having frequent family meals consumed significantly more rice, tofu, legumes, meats, fishes, eggs, green vegetables, seaweeds, fruits, milk, and milk products. This indicates that students can achieve a balanced diet through family meals. In terms of emotional status, the group having more frequent family meals showed a higher satisfaction with their daily life, health, nutritional status, and care from their relatives. In terms of personal mental status, the group having more frequent family meals was also found to be more effective at controlling undesirable emotions such as loneliness, indignation, and lethargy. As a result of this study, students in the group having more frequent family meals were found to have a positive dietary behavior, a balanced nutrition, a higher life satisfaction, and a more stable mental status. This result is useful as nutritional and educational information in schools to impress upon the public the importance of family meals for adolescents.

In recent years, there is remarkable tendency of overconsumption and high calorie intake which may come from a high availability of foods, the increase of food production, processed food, and imported food. This cause chronic diseases such as obesity. high blood pressure inducing heart disease, and diabetics etc. Traditional Korean eating pattern and habit make too much waste of foods and wasting time for the food preparation. The dietary guideline used for the guidance of Korean diet pattern is composed of 'nutrients-ingredient-cooking-meal which is not visualized pattern. Therefore we made up menus in the pattern of meal-cooking-ingredient-nutrient, which is more brief, compact and more visualized pattern. We set 27,000 menus with 600 kcal/meal which is combined with staple meal-main dish-side dish (30 menus of rife meal, 5 menus of bread meal, noodle meal and one serving dish meal). 600 kcal menu is basically for volume of serving per one person according to the experimental cooking and reference. This has several advantages of simple procedure of cooking, easy practice to use menus, and good source of nutritional values. In addition to these, it also provides a new menu to decrease the calorie consumption reducing the risk of chronic disease, to prevent wasting foods, and to help single person.