A Survey of Nutritional Status, Physical Growth and Behavior of School Children

학령기 아동의 영양실태와 신체발달 및 행동에 관한 조사연구

A survey was undertaken to investigate relationship between nutritional status and physical growth and behavior of school children. Dietary intakes, environmental factors, physical growth, personality, and cognitive development were measured in 323 children of 4 th and 6th grader in the urban and rural arcas. The results are summarized as follows : 1) The average intakes of the food groups and nutrients except ascorbic acid were lower in rural children. Comparing the intakes of the rural children with RDA of the Korean children, 64.0% of them in protein, 99.3% in calcium, 84.6% in iron, and 73.5% in riboflavin consumed less than 75% of RDA. Environmental factors were significantly related to the nutrient intakes 2) Height, weight, and head circumference were significantly related to the nutrient intakes. Retarded growth due to malnutrition was supposed in the $rural^{1)}$ area. 3) Some domains of personality were significantly related to nutrient intakes. 4) Environmental factors, physical growth, and nutrient intakes made independent contribution to variation in cognitive performance and their relative importance depended on the particular cognitive domain when stepwise multiple regression analyses were undertaken. Environmental stimulation was largely associated with verbal usage, and economic status and nutrient intakes with numerical reasoning. Above findings support that nutritional deprivation retards brain growth and performance on various cognitive dimensions of children. Therefore, amelioration of the several adverse social, economical, environmental influences as well as the improvement of dietary intake is required to bring about a substantial enhancement of the physical growth and the mental development of children.