Prevalence of Drug Abuse and Smoking and Dietary Behavior of Male Students at Technical High School

To investigate the relationship between eating behavior and the prevalence of adolescents drug abuse and smoking, this survey was conducted among 349 male students(mean age ; 16.0 $\pm$0.9yrs) at technical high schools in Kyunggi-Do. It was shown that 58.7% of total subjects were smoking and 11.2% were abusing drugs. Drug abusers weighed Less than non-abusers especially, student smokers were 2.7kg lighter than non-smokers despite the same height. Although parents' education showed no relationship with drug abuse, educational level of student smokers' fathers was significantly lower than that of non-smokers' fathers. Drug abusers and smokers showed significantly higher incidence of runaway from home, absence from school without notice, and parents' divorce than non-abusers and non-smokers. Drugs abused were sleeping pills(n=20), bonds and butane gas(n=9), marijuana(n=3), tranquilizer(n=3), morphine and cocaine(n=2), and pep pills like amphetamine(n=2) 76.9% of the drug abusers had their first experience in junior high school and 81% of the smokers stared smoking as early as in junior high school. Also, 44% of the smokers reported that they smoke daily. The drug abusers tended to have more irregular eating habits than the non-abusers. The smokers showed irregular mealtime, ate either too fast or too slow, and especially, often skipped lunch or dinner. The drug abusers and smokers took little vegetable in their meals and often ate bread or noodles instead of rice for staples. In addition, they preferred taste to nutrition when they had meals. The smokers tended to ingest smaller amount of calcium source such as milk or dinner food and fish with bone although they consume more volume of total foods than the non-smokers. All subjects took less in calorie, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin E, riboflavin, and folic acid than the Recommended Dietary Allowance Those findings suggest that drug abuse and smoking cause bad eating habits that influence unbalanced nutritional state. Therefore, nutrition education should be provided to the adolescents so that they can recognize the disadvantages of drug and smoking and its relation to dietary relation. (Korean J Nutrition 31(5) : 939-948, 1998)