The Nutrient Intakes of Rural High-Schoolers with Depressire Tendencies

Rhie, Seung Gyo; Lee, Gun Soon

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate high-school students' nutrient intakes according to the status of depressive trends, and to analyse the in physical and mental health status. The volunteers were 560 high school students selected from 8 provinces, but 511 students were analyzed. A was used for evaluation, The questions were composed in consideration of socio-demographic characteristics, physical health condition by CMI, mental condition assessed by a modified Zung's self-rating depression scale (SDS), and the evaluation of food consumption by a 24 hours recall method. The family situations of the subjects were mostly nuclear family(73%), agricultural work(53%), and having religion(53%). Only 3% of the students suffered depression where as 19% showed depression trendencies. The individual factors that affected their mental condition were family farming and consciousness of academic accomplishment. The health status counted with CMI was 6.2/20 scores. The non-depressed trend group of students had a lower score of CMI than others. The overall nutrient intakes of students were low compared with the Korean RDA for adolescents. The Mean Adequacy Ratio(MAR) of nutrient intakes was only 0.45 +/- 0.23. Iron, vitamin A, and riboflavin intakes were significantly low and correlated with depressive trend score. The result from the regression analysis showed that CMI, study accomplishment, and vitamin A were the most significant factors influencing mental condition. We concluded that Korean rural high-school students were healthy in mental condition and showed lower rates of depression academic. For there more we could say that the intakes of iron and vitamin A also influenced mental health. Findings confirmed the need of becoming hopeful job of farming and better nutritional status. These situations would be necessary for students to ameliorate the quality of rural living.