The study analyzed the body shape perception, weight control attitude, nutrition knowledge, and dietary habits of 529 high school students in Jeju surveyed from January 14-18, 2008 according to students' body shape satisfaction, with the aim of providing basic nutritional education data to aid in appropriate weight control for high school students. The data were analyzed by descriptive analysis, T-test, Chi-square test, ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation coefficients, using the SPSS Win 12.0 program. The body mass index (BMI) of subjects was in the normal range. With regard to weight distribution, 59.4% of subjects showed normal weight and girls were significantly more underweight than boys. More girls considered themselves to be fatter than boys and tended to be increasingly dissatisfied with their body shape. Both boys and girls were more interested in weight control for obesity and were significantly less satisfied with their body shape. Efforts at weight control and reduction had occurred significantly more often for girls than for boys. Dietary attitude scores were significantly higher in girls than boys. BMI positively correlated to weight control concern and nutrition knowledge positively correlated to dietary attitude. BMI negatively correlated to the body shape satisfaction, which in turn negatively correlated to food ingestion disorders. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a systematic nutrition educational program that can induce changes in dietary behavior and increase accurate perception and satisfaction of body shape.

The difference between self-evaluated obesity and obesity index of RBW and BMI as well as attitude toward weight control were studied among college students in Chungnam area. The subjects of 307 students were randomly selected and asked to categorize their body shape into 5 groups and to record their body weight and height. We found that average RBW and BMI of the students were 95.7% and 20.6, respectively. By RBW, 30.6% of students belonged to underweight and severe-underweight groups whereas 14.0% overweight and obesity ones. The female students showed lower obesity indice than the male. Self-evaluated obesity seemed likely to overestimate their body shapes above RBW and BMI, which lead to high unsatisfactioin toward their body shape. The overestimation was profound in normal weighted female students up to 20%. Misunderstanding about their obesity, especially among female college students, should be corrected necessarily by proper nutrition counseling and nutrition education, unless malnutrition could be serious in college students.