A Survey on Dietary Behaviors and Liquid Consumptions of University Students in Kongju of Chungnam Province in Korea

ABSTRACT

University students tend to have various dietary problems including undesirable dietary behaviors, inadequate intakes of nutrients and biased habits of liquid consumption. This study was conducted to find dietary behaviors (n = 357) by questionnaire survey and to examine dietary nutrient intakes (n = 60) and liquid consumption (n = 853) by food record method for 3-days among university students attended in K University of Chungnam province in Korea. Most subjects lived in the dormitory or self-boarding house, and they skipped breakfast most frequently and took breakfast most irregularly among three meals. Dietary mean intakes of energy, Ca, vitamin B2 and folate were lower than the KDRI (37-85%), and those of males were poorer than those of females. Ratios of energy intake among three meals and snacks were not distributed evenly, so the mean energy intake from snacks was higher and that from breakfast was lower than the ideal ratio, respectively. Daily mean consumption of liquid was 1,526.4 mL/d for males and 1,151.5 mL/d for females, and these intakes were more than the KDRI (1,300 mL/d for males and 1,100 mL/d for females). However, their sources of liquid consumption were not desirable because alcohol, soda, juice of fruit or vegetable and beverage mixed with fruit juice and/or vegetable juice were major sources of liquid as well as drinking water. These findings show that university students have poor dietary behaviors including frequent skipping of breakfast, irregularity of meals, inadequate intakes of nutrients and undesirable pattersirablliquid consumption including high portion of alcohol and soda as alliquid source, and these trends were stronger for males than for females. Therefore, we should endeavor to correct their meal problems id ated to dietary behaviors, nutrient intakes and liquid consumptions through nutrition education.