The Differences in Preference for Vegetables among Primary School to University Students in Gyeongbuk Area

경북지역 초.중.고.대학생의 채소류 기호도와 섭취빈도 비교

Objectives: Vegetables are the most left over side dishes in school lunch programs. This study intended to analyze the differences in preference for vegetables among the students of different age groups in order to determine potential ways of increasing vegetable consumption in this study group. Methods: A total of 308 primary to university students in Gyeongbuk area were recruited and a questionnaire-based survey was conducted. The preference score (7-Likert scale: very much dislike (1)~so-so (4)~like very much (7)) and intake frequency (5-Likert scale) of 48 kinds of vegetables in 4 vegetable groups, such as vegetable (fruit-, root-, leaf-, and stalk-vegetable), seaweeds, mushrooms, and kimchi were investigated, and data were analyzed by SPSS WIN (ver 12.0). Results: The preference scores of vegetables except for seaweeds were significantly different among school groups, university was the highest, followed by high school. Primary and middle school students showed the lowest preference score, especially for leaf- and stalk- vegetables. The preference score for seaweeds was the highest of 5.28, followed by kimchi of 4.99. With regard to kimchis, the preference score was the highest in university', followed by high school, middle school, and primary school' was the lowest. The number of vegetables with < 4.0 preference score was the highest in primary school of 16, 15 in middle school, 11 in high school, and 7, the lowest in university. The vegetable with preference score of < 4.0 in all 4 school groups were mallow, chard, bud, radish leaf, mugwort, butterbur and sweet potato stalk. With regard to the intake frequency of vegetables, kimchis, an indispensable part of the Korean diet, was the highest of 2 times/day, followed by cooked vegetables of 1.5 times/day. The correlation coefficients between preference scores and intake frequencies were statistically significant in all groups of vegetables. As for the coefficient of variation (CV) of preference score, primary school' was the highest and university' was the lowest. The number of vegetables with high CV and high inexperience were highest in primary school students. Conclusions: Providing more opportunities for consuming a variety of vegetables, such as leaf- and stalk-vegetable, it may be possible to increase vegetable consumption, especially for the primary school students.