Meal pattern, Nutrition Knowledge and Food preference of Rural middle school students

농촌 중학생의 식사양식, 영양지식 및 식품기호도

This study was undertaken to investigate meal pattern, nutrition knowledge and food preference of 438 rural middle school students living in ChunNam area. As far as nutrition knowledge is concerned, most subjects did not answer correctly on the items of basic five food groups, animal fat and vegetable oil, empty source of soft drink, nutrient requirement and water's role in energy metabolism. However they responded well on the item of iron deficiency and dietary source of Ca. Male students were significantly better in the answering the items of dietary source of energy and nutrient requirement than females, while female students were significantly better on the items of water's role in energy metabolism related to obesity. Generally the respondents did neither consume oil often nor consider consumption of salty food. Furthermore, only 38.6% of subjects drink milk daily in spite of understanding dietary source of Ca, which suggested that they should incorporate nutrition knowledge into dietary behavior. The preferred foods for most subjects were fruit, kimbab and ice cream. Contrastingly the food that they did not prefer was fermented vegetable probably due to strong flavor.