This study analyzed the dietary behaviors and adaptation for Korean foods among Central Asian workers(Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan) living in South Korea to provide basic and fundamental data that allows Central Asian workers to have desirable eating habits while living in South Korea. Questionnaires were completed by 186 Central Asian workers living in South Korea. From this study, we found that 56.8% of respondents ate three meals a day, and 27.2% of respondents ate two meals a day. 29.7% of respondents had no snacks. For adapting Korean food, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan workers had difficulties adapting spicy and salty flavors and unpleasant smell while Kazakhstan workers had difficulties due to sweet flavors and spicy and salty flavors. Men adapted better than women to adapt Korean food. Women respondents ate Korean food more often than men. And the Uzbekistan ratio of eating homeland food daily was the highest. By providing understanding of dietary patterns of Central Asian workers, these results can be used as the basic and fundamental data for their Korean food adaptation.

This study was a qualitative investigation of the process of adaptation of nutrition education programs by marriage immigrant women who completed education programs for training of food citizen leaders. Focus group interviews of seven marriage immigrant women from Vietnam, China, Mongolia and Russia were conducted and analyzed based on the Normalization Process Theory (NPT). Participants were aware of the purpose of the education program (coherence) and their confidence in organizing and reconstructing the knowledge of nutrition was increased after education (reflexive monitoring). However, they had difficulties attending long-term education programs (cognitive participation) and overcoming language barriers (collective action). Although the program was beneficial for the participants in that they could apply acquired nutrition knowledge to their everyday life as food citizen leaders, the continuous monitoring and feed-back system (management), customized application, and consideration of personal and social factors need to be developed and facilitated. In addition, various programs targeting marriage immigrant women may increase economic independence of these women. The NPT proved beneficial in conceptualizing the barriers and facilitators to implementing nutrition education. The successful implementation of nutrition intervention needs special support to overcome barriers to cognitive participation and collective action.

Despite the rapid increase in the number of foreign students, there has been a lack of research to help them adapt to Korean food culture and develop healthy eating habits. This study examined the dietary habits and problems of foreign students studying in universities of Korea. Although 97.0% of the 604 people surveyed live in dormitories, the visiting rate of the school cafeteria was low. In addition, only 30.2% of them ate three meals a day, and the frequency of eating midnight snack and convenience store foods was high. International students were positive about experiencing new Korean food, but food satisfaction in Korea was not high because of the difficulties in food selection due to religious problems and maladjustment to Korean sauces and seasonings. Information on Korean eating habits was obtained mainly from other foreign students from the same country (49.5%) and the Internet (33.8%), and there was very little interaction with Korean students at meals. The ratio of subjects who ate halal foods was 33.3%, and they were shown to have difficulty obtaining halal foods in Korea. Therefore, based on the results of this study, a support program should be developed in order to improve the dietary habits of international students.

Korean style DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) and a dietary education program for sodium reduction were developed. Reduced sodium diets (15 and 30% reductions) were developed from general diets for 3 consecutive weeks from Monday through Saturday. Subjects (19 total) were classified into two groups according to dietary education. Experimental period was from June 24 to July 23, 2012. Total sum of adaptation scores for low sodium diets significantly increased in the group that underwent dietary education compared to that without (p<0.05). After the experiment, both groups showed significantly increased values in terms of food group balance, sodium-related nutrition knowledge, attitude, and practice by paired t-test. Especially, group that underwent dietary education showed significantly higher values for attitudes by ANCOVA pre-test as a variation (p<0.01). For the results of the nutrient intake survey, group that underwent dietary education showed significantly increased values for dietary fiber (p<0.01), vitamin A (p<0.001), vitamin K (p<0.001), vitamin C (p<0.01), Folic acid (p<0.001), vitamin B12 (p<0.01), calcium (p<0.01), iron (p<0.05), and zinc (p<0.05) and significantly decreased values for sodium (p<0.05) and chloride (p<0.005). Subjects adapted to reduced sodium diets showed apparent improvements in sodium-related knowledge, attitude, practice and intake of nutrient, and these improvements were even higher in the group that underwent dietary education compared to that without. Thus, adaptation to low sodium diet combined with dietary education can improve dietary habits.