• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.397-405
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• 2001

The vision disturbances of school- age children has been recognized as and important school health problem. As the visual disturbances of the school-age children is recognized as the nation's health problem. the importance of the development of educational program for visual health should be emphasized. Recently, eyeball movement and other visual health management method has been introduced for prevention or recovery of decrease in visual acuity. But, the effect of eyeball movement was not confirmed yet. And, the controversy around the treatment effect is continued. The decrease of visual acuity is one of the important school health problem as well as it causes discomfort in daily life of the students. So, it should be considered as an important subject for school health and there is a need to develop an effective intervention program for visual health. The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate the program with the recognition of the need of the intervention for visual health. The visual health promotion program was developed by the researcher and the program was initiated by the school. Nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was applied for study which examined the effect of the visual health promotion program. The subjects were 742 children (experimental group: 398; control group: 344). The experiment was composed of health education and eyeball movement. Health education was provided 5 times to the children in the class room. Children of experimental group exercised eyeball movement in the class, watching video for 10 minutes two times a day. The exercise was continued for 10 weeks. The result of the study were as follows. 1) change of visual acuity Before the intervention, mean of the visual acuity was .86 for the experimental group and .91 for control group. After the intervention, mean of visual acuity was .95 for the experimental group and. 90 for the control group. There was no significant difference in the change of visual acuity between experimental and control group. 2) change of refraction. In the experimental group, 327 eyes (41.08%) were normal vision and 469 eyes (58.98%) were eyes of refraction errors, 38.82 % of the total eyes were myopia. There was no significant change in the refraction in the children with myopia after the intervention. 3) Awareness of visual acuity, change of knowledge, behavior. and attitude (1) After the intervention, there was a significant difference in the awareness of visual acuity (experimental group: 70.10%. control group: 50.97%, p<.01). (2) After the intervention, there was a significant knowledge increase in the experimental group (pp<.01). (3) There was no significant difference in the visual health behavior after the intervention. (4) There was a significant positive change in the attitude related to visual health in the experimental group ( pp<.05). 4) There was a significant positive change in the subjective discomfort of the students. But, there was no significant change in the objective eye symptom after the intervention. Even though there was no effect in the visual acuity and the change of the refraction. subjective visual health as well as the attitude and knowledge' of the children and parents toward visual health was improved significantly. Also, there was an increase in the intention of change and the awareness for the visual health management. It is suggested that various educational strategies for visual health promotion should be developed and examined for the visual health promotion of the students.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.202-208
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• 2005

This study was conducted to examine the food habits, knowledge of nutrition and actual conditions of food ingestion of adolescent middle school students according to questionnaire answers. Questionnaires were completed by 524 students, divided into a healthy group (n=289) and an unhealthy group (n=235) according to clinical signs. Further questions were asked of the two groups in the areas of food habits, knowledge of nutrition and nutritional attitude. The results were as follows: Mean age of all subjects was 14, heights for male and female students were 162.0 em, and 157.2 cm, weights were 53.4 kg, and 49.4, respectively. Heights and weights of male students were greater than those of female students. The body mass index (BMI) for male and female students was 20.3 kg/$m^2$ and 20.0 kg/$m^2$, respectively, and all data were within normal ranges. There were no significant differences in mean age, height, weight, and BMI between the healthy and unhealthy groups. There was no significant difference in body image recognition between the two groups, although the ratio of dissatisfaction with their own body shape was significantly higher in the female unhealthy group (46.1%), than in the female healthy group (33.0%) (p<0.05). In the area of the struggle to control body weight during the previous year, the female unhealthy group (59.4%) was higher than the female healthy group (38.4%) (p<0.01). There was no significant difference in the scores between the two groups in the areas of knowledge of nutrition and the nutritional attitude. Meal frequency and meal patterns were showed that having breakfast less than 4x/week was significantly higher in the female unhealthy group (44.0%), than in the female healthy group (30.7%) (p<0.01). Meal frequency for suppers<4x/week showed that the female unhealthy group (18.8%) was also higher than the female healthy group (10.7%). Therefore, the unhealthy group exhibited a higher pattern of missing both breakfast and supper. The male unhealthy group (16.7%) dined out more frequently than the male healthy group (12.3%) (p<0.01), and female unhealthy group also indulged in snacking significantly more frequently than the female healthy group. The unhealthy group also ate only 1 item for meals more frequently than the healthy group and no significant difference. The conclusion of this study is that adolescent Korean middle school students, who showed a higher incidence of clinical symptoms, representing an unhealthy status, missed breakfast and supper, and dined out and indulged in snacking more frequently. Their quality of breakfast and satisfaction of body image were also lower than the healthy group. These results indicated that there is a high correlation between a Korean adolescent's health status, food habits and body image satisfaction. It is recommended that a more intense program of nutritional education and monitoring be introduce into the current Korean middle-school system in order to optimally support and maximize the health potential of the current population of Korean student.