• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.272-281
• /
• 2013

To study the importance of family meals in adolescents, 251 middle school students were surveyed through a questionnaire on their family meal patterns, dietary behaviors, food intake, and life satisfaction. The family meals were defined as "meals with all family members living together" by 62.2% of the students. For the frequency of family meals, 42.2% of the students replied having family meals "More than once a day". A common reason for the difficulty in having a family meal was a "lack of time" (73.3% of the students). Students tended to respond that they would be most fond in having meals with entire family members with traditional Korean food. Having more frequent family meals was found to benefit both individual and familial dietary behavior. In terms of food intake according to the frequency of family meals, the group having frequent family meals consumed significantly more rice, tofu, legumes, meats, fishes, eggs, green vegetables, seaweeds, fruits, milk, and milk products. This indicates that students can achieve a balanced diet through family meals. In terms of emotional status, the group having more frequent family meals showed a higher satisfaction with their daily life, health, nutritional status, and care from their relatives. In terms of personal mental status, the group having more frequent family meals was also found to be more effective at controlling undesirable emotions such as loneliness, indignation, and lethargy. As a result of this study, students in the group having more frequent family meals were found to have a positive dietary behavior, a balanced nutrition, a higher life satisfaction, and a more stable mental status. This result is useful as nutritional and educational information in schools to impress upon the public the importance of family meals for adolescents.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.298-305
• /
• 2003

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the eating habits and social behavior of preschool children. Six hundred twenty seven children ranging in age from 4 to 7 and their mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing the children's eating habits and kindergarten teachers were asked to rate the social behavior of their preschool children. The eating habits of children positively correlated to those of their mothers, primarily in meal regularity, breakfast frequency, unbalanced meals, overeating, eating delivery food and food preferences. The results showed that 33% of preschool children always had unbalanced meals and 50% sometimes had them. Children who had ice cream, cake, carbonated drinks or cookies as snacks more often, tend to have meals irregularly because they favored sweets and were possibly induced to have unbalanced meals. Sixty five percent of the children were graded as good in terms of having healthy eating habits and had good social behavior. The results indicate that the eating habits of children are related to problem behavior, especially social withdrawal and anxiety. That is, children who have undesirable eating habits are likely to be anxious or socially withdrawn.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.226-233
• /
• 2009

Traditional nutrition education has not been shown to consistently produce behavior change. While it has been suggested that using emotion-based messages may be a better way to influence nutrition behavior change, this has not been well tested. Producing emotion-based messages is a multi-step process that begins with exploring subconscious barriers to behavior change rather than the more obvious and typically reported barriers. The purpose of this research was to uncover the emotional reasons, sometimes referred to as emotional pulse points, for mothers' choosing or not choosing to have more family meals. This would then serve as the first step to developing emotion-based messages promoting the benefits of family meals. Five focus group interviews were conducted with 51 low-income Black (n=28) and white (n=23) mothers. Metaphorical techniques were used to determine underlying feelings toward family and family meals. Discussions were video-taped, transcribed, and manually analyzed using a content-driven, immersion/crystallization approach to qualitative data analysis. Four themes emerged around the definition of family: acceptance, sharing, chaos, and protective/loyal. Some mothers felt mealtime was merely obligatory, and described it as stressful. Some reported a preference for attending to their own needs instead of sitting down with their children, while others felt that mealtime should be used to interact with and educate children and felt guilty when they were not able to provide family meals. Three themes emerged around feelings towards having or not having family meals: unimportant, important, and guilty. When explored further, mothers indicated that using the feeling of guilt to encourage family meals might be effective. Data obtained are being used to develop innovative, emotion-based messages that will be tested for effectiveness in promoting family meals.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.2 no.3
• /
• pp.294-304
• /
• 1997

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between dietary behavior and the nutrient intake status in the youth of rural areas, based on their personal characters such as their sex, age, family type, number of family members, mother's age, occupation, and school career. This study was made by use of a self-administrated questionnaire with a 24-hour recall for 5days as an instrument with 439 randomly selected students. Statistical methods applied to analyze the data were frequency, percent, Willcoxon Rank-sum test, Kruskal-wallis test, x2-test by contingence table, and Spearman's correlation coefficient in non parametric statistical cases. Some of the interesting results are as follows : 1) The correlation between sex and breakfast is highly significant. That is, over 80% of male students had breakfast every day, whereas only about 60% of female students had breakfast every day. Bad table manners and some other problems are insignificant with respect to the personal characters in the relations between the personal characters and eating behaviors. However, the regularity of every meal, the frequency of having meals with other family members, and the frequency of meals eaten out and snacks show significant differences. 2) The mother's occupation does not have any influence on the nutrient intake of their students when the relationship between personal characters and nutrient intake was analysed. On the other hand sex, the mother's school career, the numbers of family members, the type of family, and the income of the family showed significant differences nutrient intakes. 3) The regularity and the frequency of having meals, meals eaten out with their family members, and the table manners during meals showed significant differences in the intake of nutrient elements such as calorie, protein, fat, fiber, calcium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin and vitamin C. However some consideration during meals and problems in eating habit are insignificant with regard to nutrient intake.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.615-625
• /
• 2007

This study investigated the overall conditions related to family meals, including perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors, among middle and high school students. The data were collected from 773 male and female students attending middle and high schools in Seoul and Kyunggi-Do from March to May 2006, using pre-tested self-administered questionnaires. The results are as follows: 78.9% of the subjects lived with their parents and siblings, and 75.7% regarded family meals as meals eaten with all family members living together in a household. As for the frequency of family meals, 40.1% of the middle school subjects answered that they ate with their family 'more than once per day' and 20.8% answered '1 or 2 time per a week'. However 21.0% of the high school students had family meals 'more than once per day', and 31.7% had family meals '1 or 2 times per a week', showing a significant difference between the groups(p<0.001). When the degree of satisfaction with life was evaluated using a Likert scale(strongly satisfied 5 point, strongly unsatisfied 1 point), the middle school students showed a significantly higher level of satisfaction than the high school students towards daily life, health, nutritive conditions, and family care. feelings, attitudes, and behaviors toward family meals were also evaluated(strongly agree 5 point, strongly disagree 1 point), and the results showed that the subjects had positive psychological feelings, with significant differences based on the frequency of family meals. Likewise, the groups who ate frequent family meals scored higher on aspects related to having positive attitudes and behaviors toward the family meal, implying that eating family meals is associated with promoting friendship, psychological stability, and positive thinking in adolescents. These findings suggest that attention needs to he directed toward increasing the frequency of family meals and creating a positive family meal environment.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.329-341
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine vegetable & fruit (V/F) intakes, beliefs and self-efficacy regarding V/F consumption, nutrition knowledge and eating behavior of elementary students. A survey was conducted to the 4th graders (n = 234) at two elementary schools in Guri, Kyunggi-do. About one-fourth of subjects were overweight or obese. Subjects had 4.2 servings of V/F a day, consuming 340.2 g of V/F. Girls consumed significantly more amounts of vegetables than boys (p < 0.05). Girls were more favorable regarding V/F consumption (p < 0.01), and believed more strongly on advantages of having V/F such as “good for skin” constipation prevention (p < 0.001) and cancer prevention (p < 0.05). Boys felt more strongly in disadvantages or barriers of eating V/F, including mother's cooking time constraints (p < 0.01), lack of past experience of eating V/F, and family members' disliking of V/F (p < 0.05). Girls felt more confident in eating V/F (p < 0.05) than boys; they also felt more confident in specific items of "eating fruits/salads instead of cookies/chips for snack" and "eating fruit juice/vegetable juice instead of soda"(p < 0.01). Subjects showed low level of nutrition knowledge, especially in items such as balanced meals, recommended servings of V/F and vitamin deficiency. Compared to boys, girls had more desirable eating behavior such as eating adequate amount of meals (p < 0.001), having a variety of foods, eating fruits daily, and having fatty foods less frequently (p < 0.05). Intakes of Ca and K were quite below the recommended level, while the intakes of protein, Na and vitamin A intake were much above the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) for 9-11 old children. Nutrient intakes expressed as %DRI was higher in girls for vitamin A (p < 0.01), energy and riboflavin (p < 0.05). High V/F consumption group (${\geq}5$ servings of V/F a day) compared to the counterparts showed higher self-efficacy and had better eating behaviors. Nutrition education for children should focus on increasing consumption of V/F, by helping them to increase self-efficacy for eating V/F and to recognize the benefits and reduce the barriers of eating V/F, especially in boys. It is also needed to provide nutrition information for balanced meals or increasing V/F consumption, and help the children to adopt desirable eating behavior.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.441-451
• /
• 2011

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to examine the eating behavior of patients in a bid to facilitate the improvement of their eating behavior, as eating behavior seemed to affect oral health and dietary habits. Methods : The subjects in this study were 235 patients who visited the dental hygiene practice lab at C college in South Jeonla Province. After a survey was conducted, the collected data were analyzed with the statistical package SPSS 12.0. Results : 1. When their self-awareness of dietary habits and oral health was checked in consideration of eating behavior, those who thought they had very good dietary habits and were in good oral health had meals three times a day. Their eating time was very irregular, and they took 15 to 20 minutes to eat. Their overeating frequency was three or four times a week, and their frequency of eating between meals was once or twice a week. 2. On the contrary, the daily eating frequency of the patients who found themselves to have very bad dietary habits and to be in bad oral health was not fixed, and their eating time was neither regular nor irregular. They spent less than 10 minutes having a meal, and their overeating frequency was once or twice a week. Their frequency of having a snack was three or four times a week, and as for food preference, they had a liking for meat. 3. The patients considered themselves to be in better health when they had balanced meals and good eating behavior, namely good dietary habits. And they rated their own dietary habits higher when they were in a good oral state, had no experiences to feel pain in the mouth and didn't receive any dental treatment, namely when they were in good oral health. Conclusions : This study attempted to investigate the influence of eating behavior on oral health awareness. Another limitation of this study is that the geographic scope was just confined to an urban community in South Jeonla Province without checking any possible regional gaps. However, it's quite evident that eating behavior exerts an influence on oral health awareness, and it seems worth doing to examine a larger number of subjects by utilizing objective oral health guidelines.

• Human Ecology Research
• /
• v.61 no.1
• /
• pp.29-38
• /
• 2023

This study examined changes in dietary life and dietary life satisfaction in one-person households during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a sample of 916 one-person households from the Food Consumption Behavior Survey, we applied ANOVA and a system of equations model for our analysis which produced four main results. Firstly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, eating homemade and delivered meals increased, whereas eating restaurant, group, and HMR meals decreased. Eating breakfast and regular eating habits also increased during the pandemic. Secondly, approximately 30% of the sample reported increased expenditure on fresh food and HMR meals. The proportion of positive changes in dietary life was also greater than negative changes, and dietary life satisfaction was about three times higher than it had been before the pandemic. Thirdly, having breakfast and regular eating fully mediated the relationship between spending on fresh food and dietary life satisfaction, as well as the relationship between HMR purchases and dietary life satisfaction. Changes in expenditure on fresh food and HMR meals positively affected dietary life satisfaction through eating breakfast and regular eating. Fourthly, increased consumption of delivered food had a positive direct effect on dietary life satisfaction. Among sociodemographic variables, gender, education, occupation, and age were also significantly related to changes in dietary life satisfaction.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.27 no.3 s.47
• /
• pp.465-473
• /
• 1994

This study was carried out to evaluate the relations between sociodemographic, work-related factors and health related behaviors in a group of 1,042 workers in Taejeon and Chungnam area. The results were as followings: The older workers took more irregularly meals, more cigarette and more alcohol than the younger. Men had more appropriate sleeping time, more regular exercise than women, but more frequent alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking. The married had more regular sleeping habit than the unmarried. The group of married were smoking more and obese. In view of monthly income which represent the socioeconomic state of workers, the group of more than 1 million won had more frequent alcohol ingestion, more heavier body weight than another group of less than 1 million won. Workers having their work hours exceed 9 hours had inappropriate sleep duration, and shift workers took more irregularly meals. The group having poor self-rated health status showed more regular diet, exercise and overweight. Workers recently experienced chronic illness were more overweight and lesser smokers. Above results showed that the health related behaviors were related to the sociodemographic characteristics and occupation-related characteristics. The study for relationship between variant factors affecting health behavior and disease or mortality is need and it should be emphasized that the publicity and education of health related behavior for industrial workers is necessary.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.32-44
• /
• 2002

The objective of this study was to evaluate college students’dietary and health behaviors in relation to their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality preferences. Dietary and health behaviors were surveyed for 444 college students who performed the MBTI personality test. Only 6.1% of the subjects regularly had three meals a day, while 27.1% ate breakfast every day. Fifty-six point nine percent of the students took less than 15 minutes to eat a meal and had the habit of eating fast. The number of food groups they ate was, on average, 2.74 and was eaten mainly at dinner. This showed that college students did not eat a large variety of foods. Eighty-two percent of the subjects drank alcoholic beverages, 21.4% smoked, and 69.3% exercised. In addition, 73.9% of them were not satisfied with their body image, but they were not eager to try weight control. There were not many significant differences between Extraversion (E)-Introversion (I), Sensing (S)-iNtuition (N), and Thinking (T)-Feeling (F) in their dietary and heath behaviors, although some gender differences existed. Significantly better dietary and health behaviors were shown in subjects preferring Judging (J) rather than Perceiving (P). There behaviors included eating breakfast, regularly eating three meals a day, smoking less, exercising more and having a lower tendency to night-eating. The personality preference of J-P could be useful index for nutritional education and counseling or behavior modification programs for obese people.