Considering the increasing global burden of disease attributable to nutrition, the demand for national nutrition policies is growing stronger and stronger. The Republic of Korea is beginning to respond to this growing demand and there have been numerous recent achievements in the area of nutrition. The purpose of this paper is two fold. In the first part of the paper, an overview is provided about existing nutrition action in Korea. In the second part, information is elicited from Korean experts in the field of public health and nutrition. A structured questionnaire was sent directly to renowned Korean experts and was disseminated through the list serve of the Korean Nutrition Society. It asked about existing nutrition related policies, obstacles to nutrition policies in Korea, which professions are 'responsible' for the prevention of nutrition-related diseases and for example about existing nutrition programs within settings. Twenty-two questionnaires were returned. Based on the results, the following actions were considered crucial to develop and implement a nutrition policy in Korea: having a clear advocacy strategy for nutrition to raise awareness about the importance of nutrition, increase transparency of nutrition-related action and make the information easily accessible for all stakeholders, ensure the enforcement of regulations regarding misleading and incorrect food advertisements, strengthening the (public health) nutrition workforce, strengthen the settings-based approach and build and maintain partnerships, and last not least: educate and empower the citizens and ensure that healthy choices are 'easy choices'! Acknowledging the past and ongoing efforts in Korea, it is pivotal that the nutrition workforce grows stronger and the voice of nutritionists even louder, in order to promote and ensure the health and quality of life of the country's citizens. (J Community Nutrition 7(4) : $175\∼183$, 2005)

This study is to investigate the concerns about obesity and diet behaviors among 565 middle and high school students in Ulsan. The results indicated that high school students rather than middle school students and girls rather than boys had higher concerns about obesity and diet behaviors. For the socio-economic variables, being female, a high school student, and a group with the least monthly allowance was higher concern about obesity and diet; and household income, educational level and occupation of the fathers also had significant impacts on the student concerns about obesity and diet behaviors. The variables of height, weight, PIBW (Percentage of Ideal Body Weight), and BMI (Body Mass Index) had significant impacts on the concerns about obesity and diet behaviors. Especially, students with normal weight had the highest concerns about obesity and diet, while obese students had the lowest concerns. (J Community Nutrition 7(4): $184\∼192$, 2005)

This study was performed to investigate the related dietary factors associated with hypercholesterolemia in postmenopausal Korean women. The study sample comprised 455 postmenopausal women aged40 $\leq$ < 65. The hypercholesterolemic (serum cholesterol $\geq$240mg/dl group (N = 82) showed significantly higher BMI and waist circumference compared to the normal group (N = 373). However, both group did not show any significant difference in energy intake but hypercholesterolemic group demonstrated significantly lower intakes of fat and vitamin A with higher intake of vitamin C. Significant dietary factors associated with the higher risk of hypercholesterolemia included consumption frequencies of light color vegetable more than 3.79times/day (OR = 4.62 ; $95\%$ CI : 2.96 - 7.22), dried squid more than 0.08time/day (OR = 1.63 ; $95\%$ CI : 1.13 - 2.35), and beer more than 0.03time/day (OR = 1.57 ; $95\%$ CI : 1.01-2.43). Whereas consumption frequency of yellow and green leafy vegetables more than 1 time per day was associated with the significantly lower risk of hypercholesterolemia (OR = 0.06 ; 95 CI : 0.038 - 0.101). (J Community Nutrition 7(4): $193\∼200$, 2005)

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of offering brand-name fast food at schools on student participation in school lunch. Two studies were conducted in Indiana, USA. In the first study, daily participation rate of 42 Indiana schools were compared between the days when brand-name fast food were offered and when they were not offered. The impact of brand-name fast food service on school lunch participation differed depending on the types of service offering brand-name fast food. Offering brand-name fast food solely as part of reimbursable meals or a-la-carte items was shown to induce students to the lunch option where brand-name fast food was offered. The second study examined the relationship of brand-name fast food service to monthly participation rate by analyzing secondary data of 1,282 Indiana schools using multiple regression analysis. Offering brand-name fast food was associated with monthly participation rate in school lunch only when schools offered them solely a-la-carte. Based on the results of two studies, it was concluded that offering brand-name fast food induced students from other lunch options to the options where brand-name fast food was offered on the day of service. However, increased or decreased participation in school lunch only on a few days could have not impacted average school lunch participation over a month. It is recommended that schools planning to offer brand-name fast food should make it available as part of reimbursable school lunches so that usual school lunch eaters would not be distracted to a-la-carte lines. (J Community Nutrition 7(4): $201\～206$, 2005)

The purpose of this study is to identify the transformational or transactional leadership styles of Korean dietitians. The study was completed with Korean dietitians (n = 268, $67\%$ response) using mail survey. The leadership styles were divided into transformational (including charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration) and transactional (contingent reward, management by exception) leadership found in the several literature. Overall, the score of Korean dietitians' transactional leadership was higher than that of the transformational leadership (p < .05). Among three sub-dimensions of the transformational leadership styles, the score of 'individualized consideration' was higher than 'charisma' and 'intellectual stimulation'. Between two sub-dimensions of the transactional leadership styles, Korean dietitians used more 'management-by-exception' than 'contingent reward'. ANOVA results suggested that the transformational leadership was more likely to be used by the younger dietitians, while the transactional leadership was more likely to be used by the older dietitians (p < .05). Data showed that dietitians having 3-6 year dietetic experience used more transformational leadership than other experienced dietitians (p < .05). It was also found that the Korean dietitians' leadership styles were influenced by the type of dietetic practice area. Data showed that 'charisma', 'intellectual stimulation', 'individualized consideration' and 'contingent reward' were more likely to be used by Korean dietitians from school than by dietitians from health. care and industry (p < .05). This study will be useful for dietitians to guide the application of appropriate leadership style in order to increase employees' job satisfaction as well as organizational performance. (J Community Nutrition 7(4) : $207\∼214$, 2005)

Oxygen radical absorbance capacity(ORAC) is known to be a sensitive and simple method to determine total antioxidant capacity(TAC) in biological samples. While TAC has received great attention with its relation to pathogenesis in the progression of several diseases, little is known about association of ORAC with metabolic risk factors. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between ORAC and serum lipid profiles, fasting glucose and anthropometric measures. One hundred seventeen volunteers participated in the study. Perchloric acid treated serum was used to determine $ORAC_{pca}$. Mean$ORAC_{pca}$ of subjects whose serum total cholesterol(TC) concentrations were $\geq$ 200 mg/dl was significantly(P < 0.05) higher than that of subjects whose TC concentrations were < 200mg/dl. There were significantly positive correlations between $ORAC_{pca}$ and serum concentrations of TC(P < 0.05) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol(P < 0.01). The positive relation between cholesterol concentrations and $ORAC_{pca}$ in serum may suggest an elevated TAC against oxidative stress associated with the cardiovascular risk factors. (J Community Nutrition 7(4): $215\∼219$, 2005)

The studies on nutrition counseling and screening have been based on stand-alone program. This study introduces the nutrition counseling and screening management system. This system offers convenient user interface and the synthetic results of counseling and screening with various utilities, The system for nutrition counseling and screening consists of the general information of clients, the anthropometry data, the calculation of obesity and body mass index, the state of eating habits, the computation of calorie expenditure, the clinical symptoms, the convenient method for analysis of calorie and nutrients, nutrition prescription and alcoholism screening tests. Having interoperability, these functions preserve the information of clients and manage the historical data. The system inserts, stores and generates the synthetic information of clients, so it is able to provide suitable and efficient counseling to clients. The proposed system gathers various information of clients. With accumulated client data, it does the nutrition education, screening and counseling simultaneously. Managing clients' information connected to database, it can provide systematic and formal information. It is possible for the system to retrieve information and counsel in real time. It is expected that the nutrition counseling management system can improve the national health with animated nutrition counseling. (J Community Nutrition 7(4) : $220\∼229$, 2005)