The Research Study on the Eating Habits and Food Preferences of the Elementary School Students in Gwangju

광주지역 초등학교 아동들의 식습관 및 식품 기호도에 관한 조사연구

The purpose of this study is to survey eating habits and food preferences of elementary school students, and to offer basic informations for proper guiding method. The findings of this research were as follows : (1) In regularity of eating habit, boys had more regular terms than girls. In other words, girls more often did without meals or didn't have regular eating habit. (2) Boys were more likely to overeat than girls. On the other hand. girls tended not to eat up all food. (3) The 60% of the children, who were given the questionnaire. answered that they were greedy for delicious foods. It shows that good table manner will have to be taught to children. (4) The 70% of the children answered that they were eating the unbalanced meals. It shows that systematic and continuous guidance for correcting unbalanced meals will be necessary to children. Also, considering that the eating habit of unbalanced meals is more serious in lower grade students, the children will have to learn about balanced meals from lower grade. (5) The research showed that the children were eating out more often than before and that the 90% of the children were eating snacks. So, the table manner when eating out and food selection for snack will have to be taught to children systematically. (6) The children were likely to prefer rice to cereals and to prefer meat to fish. (7) The children tended to like fried food better than any ether food. In addition, they showed higher preference for instant foods like noodles. Therefore, the systematic guidance will be necessary for children not to select acidified fried food.