• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.330-339
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• 2018

Purpose: This study examined the dietary habits and nutritional status of young children in Korea. Methods: Data were collected from the 2013 ~ 2015 KNHNES (Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) by health behavior interviews and the 24-hour dietary recall method. This study included 1,214 (445 aged 1 ~ 2 years, 769 aged 3 ~ 5 years) young children aged 1 ~ 5 years. To analyze the dietary status of young children, the general characteristics of young children and their mothers, their dietary behaviors and health factors, and nutritional status and frequently consumed foods were analyzed. Results: The starting time of bovine milk and weaning were 14 ~ 15 months and 6.2 months, respectively. Eighty two percent of young children ate breakfast 5 ~ 7 times per week while only 2.3% of them skipped breakfast. The highest percentage (35.8%) of the frequency of eating-out was 5 ~ 6 times per week. The prevalence of asthma, atopy, and allergic rhinitis was significantly higher in young children 3 ~ 5 years old than in those 1 ~ 2 years old. The subjects with lower recommended energy intake were 44.1% and 57.4% of young children 1 ~ 2 years old and 3 ~ 5 years old, respectively. Most nutrients except calcium and potassium were taken enough. For the intakes of calcium and potassium, 51% and 64% of young children 1 ~ 2 years and 3 ~ 5 years old, respectively, were taking less than the recommended calcium intake, and 79.5% and 75.5% of young children 1 ~ 2 years and 3 ~ 5 years old, respectively, did not meet the recommended potassium intake. The frequently consumed foods of young children 1 ~ 2 years old were milk, white rice, apple, curd yogurt, and egg, and those of 3 ~ 5 years old children were milk, white rice, apple, egg, and mandarin. Conclusion: The results of this study can be used to provide basic data for the nutritional education of mothers and teachers and assist in the development of sustainable dietary programs for young children.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.99-110
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• 2016

Purpose: The current study was conducted in order to identify health and nutritional status of Korean underweight women in their twenties by comparing with normal, overweight, and obese women. Methods: Data from the 2010~2012 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used in this study. Subjects were 897 women aged 20~29 years. Subjects were classified according to underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese groups based on body mass index. Health status was assessed using data from the health questionnaire and examination. Nutritional status was assessed using data from 24-hour dietary recall and a food frequency questionnaire. Results: The underweight group had higher education and exercised less than the obese group. Means of blood chemistry and blood pressure of the underweight group did not differ from those of the normal weight group. Means of fasting glucose, insulin, lipid profiles, blood cell counts, and blood pressure in the underweight group were different from those of the overweight or obese group. Proportions of delivery, breast feeding, and irregular menstruation in the underweight group were lower compared with the other groups. Except retinol intake, means of nutrient intake did not differ among four groups. There were significant differences among four groups in the intakes of cereals and eggs and frequency of consumption of dairy products. Conclusion: The current findings showed that health and nutritional status of underweight women in their twenties did not differ from those of normal weight women. In particular, health status of underweight women in their twenties was better than that of obese women of the same ages. Further study on health and nutritional status of extremely underweight women is necessary.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.278-295
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• 2022

Purpose: This study was undertaken to revise and update the Nutrition Quotient (NQ) for Korean adults, a tool used to evaluate dietary quality and behavior. Methods: The first 31 items of the measurable food behavior checklist were adopted based on considerations of the previous NQ checklist, recent literature reviews, national nutrition policies, and recommendations. A pilot survey was conducted on 100 adults aged 19 to 64 residing in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province from March to April 2021 using a provisional 26- item checklist. Pilot survey data were analyzed using factor analysis and frequency analysis to determine whether checklist items were well organized and responses to questions were well distributed, respectively. As a result, the number of items on the food behavior checklist was reduced to 23 for the nationwide survey, which was administered to 1,000 adults (470 men and 530 women) aged 19 to 64 from May to August 2021. The construct validity of the developed NQ (NQ-2021) was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis, linear structural relations. Results: Eighteen items in 3 categories, that is, balance (8 items), moderation (6 items), and practice (4 items), were finally included in NQ-2021 food behavior checklist. 'Balance' items addressed the intake frequencies of essential foods, 'moderation' items the frequencies of unhealthy food intakes or behaviors, and 'practice' items addressed eating behaviors. Items and categories were weighted using standardized path coefficients to calculate NQ-2021 scores. Conclusion: The updated NQ-2021 appears to be suitable for easily and quickly assessing the diet qualities and behaviors of Korean adults.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.74-80
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• 2012

Fish contain both the neurotoxin methyl mercury (MeHg) and nutrients important for brain development. The developing brain appears to be most sensitive to MeHg toxicity and mothers who consume fish during pregnancy expose their fetus prenatally. Although brain development is most dramatic during fetal life, it continues for years postnatally and additional exposure can occur when a mother breast feeds or the child consumes fish. This raises the possibility that MeHg might influence brain. We evaluated the relationship between fish consumption and mercury exposure levels in umbilical cord blood of the pregnant women of the city of Tongyeong city, Korea. A total of 159 pregnant women residing in the city of Tongyeong, Korea were recruited for the study between October 2010 and March 2011. Fish consumption was evaluated using food frequency questionnaires including detailed questions on fish consumption. We used ANOVA to estimated the particular relevance between the frequency of fish consumption and the umbilical cord blood mercury concentration, and other various factors. The average mean concentration of mercury levels in umbilical cord blood of pregnant women who participated in our study were $2.69{\pm}2.50ppb$, ranging from 0.01 to 14.80 ppb. The mean concentration of umbilical cord blood mercury exposure was lower than the level recommended by WHO (5.0 ppb), but the mercury exposure level exceeded the WHO recommended in 17 (10.7%) cases of umbilical cord blood. Mercury levels in cord blood of pregnant women were $2.04{\pm}2.00ppb$, ranging from 0 to 8.00 ppb in below 29 years old and $3.18{\pm}2.74ppb$, ranging from 0.01 to 14.80 ppb in more 30 years old. In this study, there was a significant difference for the frequency of eating fish between the groups (p < 0.01). The level of the groups that ate fish 3 to more times per week ($4.15{\pm}4.02ppb$) was significant higher as compared with the level of other groups that ate fish 1 to times per week ($2.63{\pm}2.22ppb$) and none per week ($1.06{\pm}1.44ppb$), respectively. We found that the mercury concentration of umbilical cord blood associate with fish consumption and this was statistically significant and this fact revels that fish consumption is positively related to mercury levels in the umbilical cord blood. We need systematic and periodic research on the general population to prevent mercury poisoning, which can be cause by low-level mercury exposure from dietary intake such as chronic fish consumption.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.173-182
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• 2004

We carried out a validation-calibration study of the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) that we had previously developed for a community-based cohort of the Korean Genome and Health Study of the Korea National Genome Research Institute. We have collected a total of 254 3-day diet records (DRs) from 400 subjects, 200 each randomly selected from the two study cohorts of Ansung and Ansan. FFQ was administered at the time of cohort recruitment in 2001, and DRs were collected during a two month period from January through February of 2002. The mean age was 52.2 years. Farming for men and housewife for women were the most common occupations. The majority of the subjects had undergone 6∼12 years of education. The general characteristics including demographic and other data were not different from the total cohort subjects. Absolute levels of consumed nutrients including total energy (energy), protein, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, iron, retinol, carotene, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C were compared. The average of energy intake was not significantly different between the data collected by the 2 methods. However, consumptions of protein and fat were higher in data of DRs, whereas that of carbohydrate was higher in FFQ data. Significant correlation of each nutrient consumption between the data sets was observed (p ＜ 0.05) except in the case of iron, while the average correlation coefficient between them was 0.22 ranging from 0.33 for energy to 0.11 for iron. The results of cross classification by quantile for exact classification ranged from 25.2% (carotene) to 35.0% (phosphorus), and from 64.6% (vitamin A) to 76.4% (retinol) for adjacent classification. The proportion of completely opposite classification was 8.1% in average. Calibration slope was estimated by regression and calibration parameters ranged from 0.025 for carotene to 0.423 for niacin. We conclude that the FFQ we have developed is an appropriate tool for assessing the nutrient intakes as ranking exposures in epidemiology studies in view that amounts of consumed nutrients obtained by FFQ were similar to those collected by DRs, that correlations between consumed nutrients collected by these methods were significant, and that classification results were relatively fair. The correlation coefficients, however, were lower than expected, which may be mainly due to the survey season. In fact, any short-term dietary survey cannot accurately reflect the overall dietary intakes that change heavily depending on seasons. Further studies including the analysis of chemical indices would be helpful for the studies of causal relationship between the diet and disease.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.404-413
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• 2013

This study was conducted to assess the dietary habits and behaviors of college students in the Northern Gyeonggi-do Region(Republic of Korea). To accomplish this, a survey was conducted to investigate the preference, intake frequency and menus of breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks by male and female students. Most male and female students had irregular breakfasts with the main reasons for skipping a meal 'not enough time' (47.3, 45.5%) and 'irritating' (19.0, 21.9%), respectively. The principal breakfast menu for both was 'rice and side dishes'. The lunch time for male and female students was regular, and the lunch cost made up most of their spending money. The snack time of male and female students was mostly 'between lunch and dinner'. The snack menus of male and female students were 'cookies' (25.8, 19.0%), 'drinks' (18.0, 14.4%), and 'breads' (16.9, 13.2%), respectively. For male students, the reasons of snack intake were 'hunger' (46.1%), 'boredom' (15.7%), and 'habitual' (9.0%). For female students, the reasons were 'hunger' (28.2%), 'habitual' (22.4%), 'boredom' (15.5%). Half of the college students had regular delivery foods for reasons of 'hygiene', 'taste', and 'nutrition' in the order and in consideration of being the elderly. The facility foodservice was also used half of the college students for the reasons of being 'economic' (30.9, 22.6%), and 'liberated from preparing meals' (21.4, 23.8%), respectively. Both male and female students were found to have less knowledge of the facility foodservice in the elderly. Based on these results, greater efforts should be made to provide meaningful information regarding the dietary habits and behaviors of college students, especially, when elderly.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.36 no.8
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• pp.995-1009
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dietary habits, behaviors, and food consumption frequency according to gender and obesity level among middle school students in the Jeonju area. Subjects for the questionnaire were 450 middle school students (male 255, female 195) and were classified as either obese students (n=150 or non-obese students (n=299) by the obesity assessment method. The results were analyzed with SAS program (Version 9.1), and were as follows. 1. Dietary behaviors were significantly different in the rate of 'Skipping breakfast (p<0.05)', 'Duration of meal time (min) (p<0.05)' and 'Unbalanced diet (p<0.01)' between males and females. Dietary habits and behaviors also differed significantly for the rate of ‘Taste preferences (p<0.05)’, and 'Unbalanced diet (p<0.01)' between obese students and non-obese students. 2. Food consumption frequency per week was as follows. First, males were significantly higher than females in 'Instant noodle (p<0.05)', 'Milk (p<0.01)', and 'Soda pop (p<0.01)'; on the other hand females were significantly higher than males in 'Chocolate, Candy (p<0.01)'. Second, non-obese students were significantly higher than obese students in 'Instant noodle (p<0.05)', 'Hamburger, Pizza (p<0.05)', and 'Chocolate, Candy (p<001)'. Especially, non-obese male students were higher in 'Instant noodle (p<0.05)' and 'Hamburger, Pizza (p<0.05)'; non-obese female students were higher in 'Chocolate, Candy (p<0.01)'. In conclusion, an action program is needed to encourage healthful dietary behaviors, increased physical activity, and forming good lifelong habits.

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.57-68
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• 2017

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of community intervention on reducing salt intake among college students on their knowledge, attitude and practice of low-salt diet. Methods: A community intervention planned to increase college students' knowledge, attitude and practice of low-salt diet. The intervention comprised of 1 lecture on salt and health, 4 campaigns on low-salt diet, and 2 taste testing was carried out from March 24 to May 19, 2015. All the intervention was open to entire university while data was collected from a panel of convenient sample. We used the baseline data of 251 students, 226 students completed post-test. Post-test data on knowledge, attitude, and practice, blood pressure measurement, and urine salt test were collected on May 25 and 26 by trained nursing students and graduates. Baseline data were collected on March 17 and 18. Data were analyzed using IBM-SPSS 21.0 for t-test and ANCOVA. Results: Regarding a general characteristic and health behavior, there was statistically significant difference in living arrangement(p<0.001), amount of monthly allowance(p=0.005) and frequency of eating-out(p<0.001) between the two regions in this study. However, there was no statistically significant difference in gender, major, smoking, drinking and frequency of breakfast. Regarding a characteristic related to low-salt diet, there was statistically significant difference in diastolic blood pressure level(p=0.002), urine test(p=0.001). But there was no statistically significant difference in knowledge, attitude, practice of low-salt diet and systolic blood pressure. There was no statistically significant difference in their knowledge of low-salt diet(F=1.588, p=0.209), attitude(F=2.182, p=0.141), practice(F=3.507, p=0.062) and systolic blood pressure(F=1.723, p=0.191), diastolic blood pressure(F=1.552, p=0.214), urine test after a community intervention. Conclusions: Community intervention that does not have concrete target group doesn't seem to be effective on increasing knowledge, attitude and practice of the entire community, not even in university-a somewhat closed community. It is suggested to apply a target specific intervention in order to have efficient and effective outcome from a intervention.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.789-792
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• 2015

Samples of fishery products were tested for radioactivity by using the intake frequency data from Korea Health Statistics. The radioactivity of $^{40}K$, $^{137}Cs$, $^{134}Cs$, and $^{131}I$ was analyzed using gamma spectrometry with a simplified sample pre-treatment procedure. The radioactivity range for $^{40}K$ was 21.9-3050 Bq/kg, whereas the radioactivities of $^{137}Cs$, $^{134}Cs$, and $^{131}I$ were under minimum detectable activity which were in the range of 0.140-1.97, 0.0900-1.89 and 0.124-1.94 Bq/kg, respectively, for the three species. The results suggest that the Fukushima accident did not have a significant impact on domestic fishery products, which were analyzed during the period from 2013 to 2015. Additionally, there seemed to be no significant impact of additional exposure dose by the analyzed radionuclides.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.577-587
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• 2012

This study was conducted to investigate the consumption pattern and perception of traditional soy sauce and soybean paste products in male and female adults aged 19 and over in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do areas in order to promote the development of the products' industry. The survey was conducted between October 1 to October 15, 2011 among 294 male and female adults aged 19 years and over in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do areas. The gender distribution of the subjects was 33.3% males and 66.7% females. For a perception on traditional dietary life, the degree for enjoying meals with cooked rice as the staple food revealed that 32.3% of the subjects responded 'strongly agree'. The intake frequency of traditional soy sauce and soybean paste products in the subjects of the study showed that in the case of doenjang, 49.7% of the participants consumed it twice a week and 21.4% consumed it once a week. For gochujang, 59.9% consumed it twice a week and 19.0% consumed it once a week. The perception on the preparation method for traditional soy sauce and soybean paste products showed a low level for traditional soy sauce and soybean paste products. The reason for purchasing traditional foods showed that 77.6% of the subjects made purchases for convenience and 8.2% purchased it for its small package. For the subjects, the priority for purchasing traditional soy sauce and soybean paste products was as follows: in the first rank, ingredients & origin made up 33.7% and price comprised of 26.2% of the priority. Regarding satisfaction for soy sauce and soybean paste products in the market, the degree of satisfaction was high for gochujang. With regard to gender difference, female subjects showed a significantly lower satisfaction for cheonggukjang and kuk-ganjang, and a significantly higher satisfaction for chin-ganjang, compared to the male subjects. The results of the study depicted that consumer's requirement was high for traditional soy sauce and soybean paste products in the market, particularly for the safety of the products in the market. Consumer satisfaction was relatively positive yet, some efforts are needed in order to improve the quality of cheonggukjang and kuk-ganjang.