A Study on the Eating Out Behavior of University Students in Seoul

서울시내 대학생의 외식행동에 관한 조사 연구

In order to investigate the eating out behavior of university students, this survey was conducted using the questionaires for 710 students(369 male, 341 female) from 11 universities in Seoul. It was revealed that 39.4% of the subjects spent $60,000{\sim}100,000$ won for monthly eating out cost and 57.8% of them ate out more than once a day. Most of them expended less than 3,500 won for lunch, while 36.5% of them spent $4,000 {\sim}5,000$ won for dinner. Dinner was regarded more important than lunch. Korean foods were the most preferred menu for eating out with friends and fast foods were the second. But Boonsik(snack bar foods), Chinese foods and Japanease foods were rarely selected. Frequency of selecting fast foods was 8 times greater than that of Boonsik. This indicates that the preference of western flavor and the pursuit of convenience is getting more obvious. While dating, western foods were preferred, followed by Korean foods, fast foods. The 80 kinds of foods were reported as favored eating out foods. Although 50 among 80 were Korean foods, the rest of them were Koreanized foreign foods most of those were western style. This may suggest that when the students become adults, they will be much fond of western dish for their dinning out. This tendency of preferring western flavor were much apparent in foods for dinner compared with lunch. In both sexes, the standard of food choice was in the order of taste, price, mood, hygiene, service and brand name. But male students were more conscious of price and service while female students were more concerned about taste and hygiene. Most unsatisfying feature in restaurant was unstable atmosphere for both sexes. Taste was the most important sensory factor in selecting the foods, followed by appearance, smell and texture. Major source of restaurant information was recommendation by friends or relatives. But the use of internet or magazine was negligible. Female students had more positive attitude, compared with male students, in using restaurant information and pursuing eating out for gourmet. The dining out menu of which price ranges about $3,000{\sim}5,000$ won could be preferable foods for most people. Therefore, instead of blaming them for eating too much fast foods, new menus which fit the food preference and affordability of the students should be developed.