Comparison of Dietary Behaviors by Type of Residence among College Students

거처지별로 비교한 대학생의 식생활 행태

This study was carried out to investigate the differences of the dietary behavior of the college students by the type of the residence, that is, home-living, dormitory-living, and self-cooking. The responses of 307 students to the questionaire were analyzed. The average meal frequency of the students was 2.4 times a day. Breakfast was skipped most frequently, especially in dormitory-living and self-cooking students compared to home-living ones. Forty-three percent of the students were found to eat breakfast less than twice a week. Such a poor eating habit was mainly due to insufficient time or idleness. When the quality of the meal was evaluated, dormitory-living and self-cooking students had worse scores than home-living ones. The formers had poor dietary habit in terms of balanced breakfast and food diversity of each meal compared to the latter. Fast foods and coffee were consumed more frequently by dormitory-living and self-cooking students than home-living ones. The main food they eat was rice. However, female dormitory-living students had a higher tendency to enjoy bread for breakfast and noodle for dinner compared to the other groups. Home-living and self-cooking students had snack more frequently than dormitory-living ones, and female than male. In terms of snack time, most of the respondents had snack between lunch and dinner or after dinner. The percentage of those who had snack after dinner was greater in dormitory-living and self-cooking students than home-living students. Results of the food preference test showed that their favorite dishes were fruit salad, Bulgogi, uncurdled Tofu stew, Kimbab, and boiled rice. We observed that dormitory-living and self-cooking students had more problems in their dietary behavior. Therefore, they need to learn how to manage their own meals. This study might be helpful to develop nutrition education materials for the dietary improvement of the college students.