Dietary behavior status and its association with study-related factors in middle school students in Gyeonggi area / 한국영양학회지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to examine the status of dietary behavior and its association with study-related factors in middle school students. METHODS: Study-related factors, dietary habit score and dietary behaviors were surveyed by questionnaire and then analyzed. A total of 580 students in some middle schools in Gyeonggi-do participated in this study. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS for windows Ver. 22.0. RESULTS: 71.3% of the subjects slept for 6 ~ 8 hours, and the studying time outside of school was the highest (2 ~ 4 hours). The highest score for stress from studying by private lessons or academies was ‘seldom stressed’, with higher stress being observed in male students than female students. The average dietary habit score was 3.69 in male students and 3.62 in female students. The highest average time for meal eating was 10 ~ 20 minutes, with shorter times being observed for male students than female students. Eating meals was regular in most students and the highest number of snack eating was 1 ~ 2 times a day. For dietary behaviors by study-related factors, students with more than 2 hours of studying time outside of school showed higher dietary habit scores than those with less than 2 hours, who showed significantly higher rates of eating 2 meals a day. As the sleeping hours and daily average studying hours increased, the rate of regular meal eating increased significantly. CONCLUSION: The students showed good, above average dietary behaviors, but gender differences in study-related factors and dietary behaviors. Moreover, the sleeping hours and the studying time outside of school were correlated with dietary habit scores and dietary behaviors. Thus, continuous and systematic education for proper dietary behavior is needed along with greater interest in students with problems of study-related factors, particularly those due to study burden.