Nutritional Status and Food Preference of School Children in Ulsan

Kim, Hye Kyung

Abstract

This study was intended to provide basic information for nutrition education and meal planning by evaluating the nutritional status, food habits, and food preference of elementary school children with school lunch program and without school lunch program(lunch box). The subjects of this study consisted of 266 elementary school children aged from 10 to 12(136 male, 130 female) in Ulsan the area. The survey was conducted by questionnaires and data were analyzed by SPSS program. The average body weight was 38.4+/-6.9 kg for boys and 36.8+/-7.4 kg for girls and the average heights was 141.3+/-5.6cm for boys and 141.2+/-5.7cm for girls. These values were lower than that of the Korean reference. 56.0% of the subjects skip breakfast 1 to 2 times a week, 58.2% of the subjects had prejudice for special food, such as bean, anchovy, and pork. The food habit scores of the subjects was divided into poor(11.7%), fair(63.5%), and good(24.8%). The average score of girl's was significantly(p<150) higher than that of the boy's. Compare to 1/3 of RDA for children, the average intake of nutrients provided lower amounts of all nutrients. Therefore Calcium and vitamin A intakes were especially lower than the others. Therefore the importance of milk and green vegetables must be emphsized to them through nutrition education. Children preferred ssalbab to jabkogbab and liked beef-based soup, and baechu kimchi. There were significant differences in food habit scores with gender, parent's education, and exercise. The results of this study indicate that nutrition education and menu planning program should be applied to elementary school children who are served by the school lunch program.