Abstract
This study was intended to provide basic data of nutrition education to a prevention of obesity and living patterns of elementary school students. Through the measurment of the actual obesity rate of children for students who were in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school as well as their mothers, and by analyzing obesity-related factors. Children have started to have the characteristics obesity and obesity problems. 1. There were total 234 children including 133 boys (56.8％) and 101 girls (43.2％) for the study. There were 80 children in the fifth grade (34.2％) and 154 children in the sixth grade (65.8％). 2. Among the subjects 20.1％ were obese. By gender, the obesity rate of boys (27.1％) was higher than that of girls (l0.9％)(p＜0.01). By grade, children in the fifth grade (26.3％) had higher obesity rate than children in the sixth grade (l6.9％)(p＜0.05). 3. In terms of the educational level of parents, the obesity rate of children of parents who received university and／or higher education was 27.5％ (p＜0.05). 44.1％ of parents answered ‘I almost never give snack’s’(p＜0.01). 4. There was 32.8％ for an irregular quantity of meal. There was no obese child who under-ate (p＜0.05). In terms of impulse eating, ‘I eat.’ and ‘I don't eat.’ were 24.4％ and 25.9％ respectively. The obesity rate of the case of ‘I eat only food I like.’ was 10.6％ (p＜0.05). In terms of the obesity rate based on the daily average meal frequency, there was the highest rate of 26.1％ for I average meal frequency per day, 13.0％ for 2 daily average meal frequency, and 7.4％ for over 3 average meal frequency per day (p＜0.05). For a degree of a physical activity, the group of active physical activity (p＜0.05) and the group which liked the physical exercise showed a lower obesity rate (p＜0.001). The obesity rate of children who had regular exercise was 11.8％. It was lower than the obesity rate (24.8％) of children who didn't exercise (p＜0.01). The higher exercise frequency per week was, the lower the obesity rate was(p＜0.01). In terms of the exercise time, there was 8.3％ for over 60 minutes and 28.9％ for less 15 minutes. The group which had the long exercise time showed a lower obesity rate(p＜0.05). As the result, the education for obesity must enable students to recognize the warning signs for obesity and control their own weight with proper living patterns, by modifying behaviors considering the degree of obesity. Obesity must be controlled by the prevention and education connected with the family for all students as one of the school health programs. There must be also the development of a program through individual consultation considering the degree of obesity.