Snacking Behaviors of Middle and High School Students in Seoul / 대한지역사회영양학회지

The purpose of this study was to investigate snacking behavior in adolescents. We selected one middle school and one high school in 11 school districts in Seoul. The subjects were 1,813 students (904 boys and 909 girls) in 21 schools (11 middle schools and 10 high schools). Subjects reported their snacking behavior: snack frequency, snack type, snack time, with whom to eat snack, place to purchase snack. The subjects were classified into four groups by gender and schooling. The mean snack frequency was 2.8. Girls ate snacks more frequently than boys (p < 0.001). More than half of subjects ate 1 to 3 snacks a day. Only 9.3% of them did not eat any snack. Tangerine was highly ranked in snack type. Each subject groups had different snack time (p < 0.01) and type of snack (p < 0.001). Most snack was consumed alone (46.6%), however they mainly ate fruits and other foods with family. 46.9% of snacks were purchased outside. A typical snack time was 'before dinner' for most snacks except fruits. Unhealthy foods like soft drinks, cookies, chips, candies, chocolates, ice creams had relatively high proportion in snack consumption with friends. In conclusion, adolescents had different snacking behaviors by their age and gender. These results indicate necessities of multi-dimensional efforts at home, school, media and government level considering adolescents' age and gender for their healthy snacking behavior.

Dining-out behaviors of residents in Chuncheon city, Korea, in comparison to the Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey 2001

Dining-out behavior is associated not only with socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, education, occupation, residence, and marital status, but also with individual preferences, such as eating-out activities, interests, and opinions. We investigated dining-out behaviors and their associated factors. Announcements by health practioners and the Chief of Dong Office were used to recruit 739 residents (217 males and 522 females) in Chuncheon, Korea. Information on the frequency and reasons for eating out, the standards for meal selection, and the overall satisfaction with restaurants, based on taste, nutrition, amount, price, service, sanitation, and subsidiary facilities of restaurants, was obtained through personal interviews with a structured questionnaire. Among all respondents, 46.3% of subjects ate outside of the home once or twice a month, and 33.8% reported that they ate out only a few times a year, or never. This was much higher than the national average of 52.0% as reported by the Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey (KNHNS) in 2001. The frequency of eating out differed significantly according to age (p=0.001), family income (p<0.001), residential area (p<0.001), and educational level (p<0.001). The most common reasons for dining out were meetings (46.7%), followed by special celebrations (15.4%), and enjoyment (11.2%). Korean food (55.3%) was the most frequently selected type of meal when eating out, and food was most often selected based on personal preferences (41.4%) and taste (29.8%); only 5.5% and 7.7% of subjects considered nutrition or other factors (e.g., sanitation), respectively. The results showed that the frequency of eating out for Chuncheon residents was much lower than the national average; in addition, eating-out behaviors depended on the residents' socio-demographic and personal characteristics.