Abstract
The purpose of this study was to find out how much they have several aspects of food related knowledge and eating behaviors of high school students in Sungnam area. The self-administrated questionnaire was used. The result were as follows: 1. The average height of boys and girls was $172.6{\pm}0.7$ cm and $156.3{\pm}1.5$ cm respectively. The average weights of them were $62.4{\pm}0.5$ kg (male) and $47.2{\pm}0.8$ kg (female). BMI (Body Mass Index) of them were $20.74{\pm}0.14$ (male), $18.82{\pm}0.28$ (female). The average age is 16.7 years old. 2. The 66.5% of the subjects were spent more than one-third of their pocket money in buying on light meals during three times a week. There were significant differences between income level of family. Boys spent more money on each meal than girls. And significant differences were also obserbed by their residence area and Bundang residences spent more in buying snacks. 3. The rate of skipping meals was 51.2% in boys compared with 68.0% in girls. The frequencies of buying snacks instead of main meal were high in girls. Time limits in eating may possibly be the main reason for skipping meals (59.8%), especially in the morning. Skipping a breakfast becomes general eating habits in high school students, because of pressure for time to go to school. 4. It is required that parents should be taught to prepare balanced lunch box for their children because the rate of students who prepared two lunch boxes are 49.4%. 5. The students took snacks once or twice a day. They usually bought snacks in school concessions (51.8%) and they selected items of snack instinctivly. The girls ate snacks during lunch break time (31.7%) and after dinner (23.6%). Boys ate snacks after dinner (29.1%). Preference of foods were different by sex. Boys preferred bread (31.7%), milk and otherdairy products (80.8%), cola and soda (42.0%) as their snacks between meals. Girls selected biscuit, chip, beverage, coffee as their snacks, frequently. 6. BMI value of the group who ate between meals more than three times a day was lower $(18.78{\pm}0.65)$ than that of the group who ate nothing between meals $(20.71{\pm}3.79)$. 7. As for the nutritional knowledge, the students generally had higher correct rate of answer about which nutritive components of food has (76.6%). But they had lower knowledge on questions of nutritive values in food (10.6%). There was a meaningful relation between favorite food and nutritional knowledge. In conclusion, there were some problems on nutritional knowledge and eating habits among the high school students. Therefore, it was required that girls should be learned to recognize the importance of breakfast and needed to select balanced meals and snacks. And it was required that the nutrition education should be complemented to motivate and improve practical eating behaviors.
(Department of Food and Nutrition, School of Human Ecology, Kyungwon University)
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