Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate eating habits. nutritional knowledge and the active use of information from the eating habits chapter of the textbook by middle school students of Korea and Japan. 9th grade students of 7 middle schools residing in Gyeongju and Hukuoka. Japan (592 Korean students. 546 Japanese students) participated in this study. Research data were collected by means of questionnaires and analyzed by such means as frequency, percentage. means. standard deviation. $\chi$$^2$-test, t-test, F-test and Pearson's correlation analysis employing SPSS Program. The results of this study were summarized as follows: 1. In terms of the physical features of middle school students, the height of Korean students tend to be taller than Japanese students. The weight of Korean students are on the average heavier than Japanese students. Research also proves that Japanese families have more family members. Korea has more full time housewives as well. Regarding their health. Korea has more people who consider themselves healthy than Japan does. 2. More students in Japan tend to eat breakfast and dinner everyday compared with Korea. Students eat snacks at night more in Korea than Japan. The average meal takes less than 20 minutes in Korea. It takes less than 30 minutes in Japan. Dinner is considered to be most important meal by the students of Korea and Japan. Meat. noodles. bread and cake are highly enjoyed by the students of both nations. 3. There was a little difference between Korean and Japanese students. concerning the necessity of nutrition education because they both study home economics. 4. The use of information from the textbook shows. most students eat green vegetable almost everyday but Korean students tested as eating more. Japanese students more often say they drink more than a cup of milk everyday The Japanese students have higher rates of using information from the textbooks. drink milk everyday. eat bean paste soup. eat a lot of meat and fish. 5. It turns out that students who have more nutritional knowledge have a low late of eating convenience food and student who utilize the chapter in the textbook in everyday life have low rates of eating convenience food.