Assessment of diet quality of adults from North Korea: using nutrition quotient (NQ) for Korean adults / 한국영양학회지

ABSTRACT

Purpose@#The purpose of this study was to assess the diet intake status and quality of adults from North Korea who had lived in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, using the nutrition quotient (NQ) for Korean adults. @*Methods@#A number of 166 adults aged from 20 to 64 years were enrolled as study subjects.A structured questionnaire was used to collect information on their demographic characteristics, food consumption frequency, eating behaviors, and NQ. The NQ score was then used to measure the overall diet quality. The NQ score was composed of four major agebased categories. ‘Balance’, ‘Diversity’, ‘Moderation’, and ‘Dietary behavior’ were utilized as scores for measurements within each of the four categories. The scores for all four categories were summed up, resulting in the total NQ score. Participants’ age groups were stratified by 20’s, 30’s, 40’, and over 50’s. A χ2 test and generalized linear regression (GLM) model were used to assess a significance for difference of subject distribution in categorical and continuous variables in the food consumption frequency, eating behaviors, and NQ scores. @*Results@#Participants in younger age groups were more likely to report consumption of ramyeon, fast food, sweet and greasy baked products, processed beverage, delivery food, and night snacks than the older age groups. Most importantly, participants in 20’s age group were less likely to report the total NQ and moderation score than the 50’s age group. @*Conclusion@#In this study, the 20’s age group displayed a lower NQ characteristic for an unbalanced diet. Therefore, it is imperative for adults from North Korea to be given individualized diet instructions along with nutritional education programs.