A study on eating out and snack intake of elementary school students living in Jeonbuk province

전라북도 일부 초등학생의 외식 및 간식섭취 실태조사

This research investigated the eating out and snack intakes situation of five hundred eighty five $5^{th}\;and\;6^{th}$ graders living in the city and rural parts of Jeonbuk province. The results of this study are as followed: Nuclear families in urban area and rural community are 84.5% and 64.7% respectively. On the other hand, extended families are 7.9% in urban area and 18% in rural communities. Out of all the households, 34.3% (urban: 37.2%, rural community: 31.5%) answered they like to eat out. Over 50.3% preferred eating Korean style food and the reason was 'the taste': urban (71.4%) and rural community (67.8%). People living in urban communities seemed to eat out more frequently than rural places and $3{\sim}4$ times a month was the average. Usually people seemed to eat out during the weekends and in the evening time 84.3% (after 7:00 p.m.). Based on each family's living standard, people answered 'we hardly ever eat out' for those in the lower class (59.1%), the middle class said once or twice a week (47.1%), and the upper class (35.7%). It was obvious that people in the middle and upper class tend to eat out more frequently than those in the lower class. The most common period of time which snacks were taken was after school (38.5%), on the way back from educational institute (35.0%) and the choices of snacks which they purchased were frozen sweets (56.4%)chips & cookies (25.2%) beverages (9.9%) Fast foods (4.6%) and fried foods (3.9%) in order. Urban children seem to eat more frozen sweets and rural children ate more chips & cookies. Also, amount of snacks between meals showed a higher percentage to those who had more pocket money, The type of snacks were fruits (37.1%) chips and cookies et cetera (19.2%) instant foods (12.8%) dairy products (11.1%) confectionary (10.3%) fried foods (5.1%) in order. The result shows that urban children eat out more frequently than those in rural areas, Eating around 7:00 p.m. was most common and the middle and upper class tend to eat out more frequently than those in the lower class, Also, snacks were most often bought before and after school. After 10:00 p.m frozen goods and chips were the most preferred choice. Specially, the reason for eating fast foods was because of the pleasing taste. From this study, it is clear that eating out and having snacks became pervasive into our lives in both urban and rural areas. Hereafter, an appropriate eating habit should be correctly educated to elementary students by spoken words and textbooks in a curriculum. In reality, snacks are classified as being the leading factor of obesity. Therefore more products containing balanced nutrition should newly develop rather than snacks with high fat content.