• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.103-116
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of family mealtime on the childrens' school adaptation. This study uses data from the 2012 Survey on Child Education and School Involvement of Parents by the Center for Family-School Partnership Policy Research at Seoul National University. Survey data was collected from 1500 parents with school-aged children. For the data analysis, Chi sqaure test and hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted. The results of these analyses showed that the numbers of family meals shared averaged 4.26 times per week for breakfast and 4.33 times per week for dinner. There were significant differences in the number of family meals shared together according to school level, residence area, and parent employment status, and household income. In addition, childrens' school adaptation was significantly different depending on school level, parent gender, parent education, and parent employment status. Finally, according to the hierarchical regression analyses, the number of family meals shared significantly predicted childrens' school adaptation. The greater number of family meals shared, the stronger the childrens' school adaptation. These results indicate that family mealtime has a positive effect on childrens' school adaptation. This study suggests that family mealtime is an indicator of family strength and it needs to guarantee family shared time at least to have a dinner together. This study could provide grounds for making family policy and education policy in order to guarantee family shared time.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.1-13
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of family mealtime and family functioning (family cohesion, family adaptability, and communication with father and mother) on early adolescent school adaptation. Data of 3,145 middle school students from the Survey on the Family Values and Lives among Adolescents(2010) conducted by National Youth Policy Institute(NYPI) were used. The findings are as follows. First, there were significant differences in the frequency of having breakfast and dinner with father and having breakfast with mother, family cohesion, and communication with father according to gender. Second, hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that household economic status, mother's employment status and adolescents' gender among demographic characteristics, having breakfast with father and having dinner with mother in family mealtime frequency, and all the variables of family functioning predicted adolescents' school adaptation. Finally, economic status, having dinner with mother, family cohesion, and communication with father and mother were associated with adolescents' school adaptation for both boys and girls. Mother's education and having breakfast with father were found to be significant for only boys, while mother's employment status and family adaptability were found to be significant for only girls. These findings could provide grounds for making family and education policy.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.226-233
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• 2009

Traditional nutrition education has not been shown to consistently produce behavior change. While it has been suggested that using emotion-based messages may be a better way to influence nutrition behavior change, this has not been well tested. Producing emotion-based messages is a multi-step process that begins with exploring subconscious barriers to behavior change rather than the more obvious and typically reported barriers. The purpose of this research was to uncover the emotional reasons, sometimes referred to as emotional pulse points, for mothers' choosing or not choosing to have more family meals. This would then serve as the first step to developing emotion-based messages promoting the benefits of family meals. Five focus group interviews were conducted with 51 low-income Black (n=28) and white (n=23) mothers. Metaphorical techniques were used to determine underlying feelings toward family and family meals. Discussions were video-taped, transcribed, and manually analyzed using a content-driven, immersion/crystallization approach to qualitative data analysis. Four themes emerged around the definition of family: acceptance, sharing, chaos, and protective/loyal. Some mothers felt mealtime was merely obligatory, and described it as stressful. Some reported a preference for attending to their own needs instead of sitting down with their children, while others felt that mealtime should be used to interact with and educate children and felt guilty when they were not able to provide family meals. Three themes emerged around feelings towards having or not having family meals: unimportant, important, and guilty. When explored further, mothers indicated that using the feeling of guilt to encourage family meals might be effective. Data obtained are being used to develop innovative, emotion-based messages that will be tested for effectiveness in promoting family meals.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.924-933
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate meal service conditions in child education centers as well as the satisfaction and preference levels of preschoolers. Preschoolers' menu preferences for bab, miyeokguk, baechu-kimch, jajangmyeon, and yogurt were all high. There were also high preferences for jjim, jorim, bbokkum, and tugim. Attention articles meal service strong concern for check family communication tools, and parents had passive for frequency of giving parent's opinion. The variables that influence on importance to meal service were purchased a fresh groceries, balance nourishment for preschooler and meal service menu for kid's health promotion when ranked. The variables that influence on satisfaction to meal service were hygiene education, mealtime and place, equipped with a sanitary feeding facilities and purchased a fresh groceries when ranked.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.43-57
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• 2001

This study was to investigate the changes in dietary practices, reasons for making dietary changes, current food consumption patterns, and eating habits. Data were collected from 515 parents whose children were attending an elementary school and a middle school in Kimcheon. Among the twenty food groups studied, subjects reported eating more fruit, vegetables, lower-fat meats, high-fat meats, reduced/skim milk, and eggs and less sugar, fats, rice, salt, potato/sweet potato, and chicken. The changes in dietary practices except high-fat meats and salt were significantly different between sex, age, education level, income level, or BMI groups. The primary reason for making dietary changes was 'concerned about family's health'. The average rate of never eating breakfast or less than 2 times per week was found to be 23.2% with a greater rate in younger age group. The rate of breakfast skipping was found to vary between different age and education groups. The regularity of mealtime and overeating practices were significantly different between age groups. Eating out practices were found to vary between different age, education, and income groups. People at younger age group in Kimcheon should be targeted for nutrition education about eating habits. These findings are applicable at the planning and implementation stages of various nutritional improvement projects.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.135-156
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aim to determine adolescent meal time, which provides the important context of parent-child sharing time. We divided mealtime into family meal and alone meal, and analyzed the time/space context of each meal time as well as the social determinations. Method: We employed adolescents age 10-18 who live with married patents and attends school at the present (n=5,128) from the original data of Korean Time Use Survey. Results: More adolescent were engaged in family meal rather than eating alone in daily bases. However, the trend show difference by day of week and academic grade; family meal are more prevalent in weekends rather than weekdays. As adolescent reaches high school age, the proportion of eating alone beats the proportion of family meal time. Most of the meal occur at home. Having meal outside was relatively scares, especially on weekdays. Tobit and logistic analysis reveal that, on weekday meal, less school hours, more time spent at the private academy, having family leisure event, and long mother's housework hours were positively associated with family meal time. In weekend model, father's education gradient was associated with family meal time, showing higher the father's education level, there were higher chance of having weekend family meal. As for the eating alone, relevant factors were similar with family meal but the directions were the opposite; having family leisure were negatively associated with alone meal, both weekdays and weekend. Long academy hours, meal preparing and leisure alone were positively associated eating alone. Overall, weekday meal time was strongly linked with adolescent daily schedules and time use, while for weekends meal, in both family meal and alone meal, the influence of parent factors were discovered. Conclusion: The results indicates that alone meal and the family meal are not exclusively related but seem to be complementary. Families tend to enjoy family meal yet, there are some necessary situation that adolescent need to be on their own. Increase in ready-made food industries, growing independence of children by age seem partly allow adolescent children to eat alone. Careful attentions may require for monitoring weekends meal situation and the family factor of adolescent in future studies.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2015

This research was designed to examine the dietary habits and unbalanced diet of middle school students by gender and region. The survey was conducted using questionnaires on dietary habits and unbalanced diet administered to 726 students (urban: 367, rural: 359). The obesity index using BMI showed that the largest proportion of girls was 'underweight' in both regions, which showed a significant difference by region (p<0.001). Male students in urban areas prefer salty taste more than rural students (p<0.05). In urban areas, problems relating to dietary habits were 'unbalanced diet' and 'overeating' in male students and 'frequent snacks' and 'irregular mealtime' for female students (p<0.01). The frequencies of skipping breakfast (p<0.01), snack intake (p<0.001), eating out (p<0.001) and fast food consumption (p<0.001) were significantly higher in urban students than in rural students, and the reason for eating snacks was 'hungry' in urban students and 'habitually' and 'delicious' in rural students (p<0.01). Unbalanced diet was significantly higher in rural students compared with urban students (p<0.001) and male students compared with female students in urban (p<0.05), and the factors affecting dietary habits were mostly related to family. Male students in urban areas showed a significantly lower intake frequency of 'fish, tofu and beans' (p<0.05) and 'milk and yogurt' (p<0.05), but higher intake frequency of 'vegetables' (p<0.001) compared with female students. Male students in rural areas showed a significantly lower intake frequency of 'meat' (p<0.05) but higher intake frequency of 'milk and yogurt' (p<0.05) compared with female students. Urban students showed a significantly higher intake frequency of food groups compared with rural students. To conclude, desirable nutrition education on meal regularity, snack choice, and problems relating to unbalanced diet should be conducted in schools.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.710-721
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• 2009

This study was conducted to investigate the body weight status (by WLI: Weight-Length Index) and dietary habits and to assess the nutritional status among preschool children in the Daegu area. Dietary habits including dietary attitude and behavior were investigated using questionnaire answered by mothers of 680 subjects aged 4 to 6 years old (508 completed). Also, dietary intake survey using 24-hour recall method was performed by mothers of the children. According to WLI, the underweight, normal, overweight and obesity level of subjects were 9.1, 62.0, 19.5, and 9.4%, respectively. As well, the number of girls was higher than boys in underweight, overweight, and obese group. There were significantly different on overeating, eating fast, and preferring eating-out by body weight status, and overweight group got higher score than underweight or normal-weight group (p < 0.01, p < 0.001). As well, there was significantly different on not moving around during mealtime by body weight status, and underweight group have lower score than obese group (p < 0.001). From the 24-hour recall survey, it was found that intakes of all the nutrients were higher than the %KDRI except energy, calcium and folate. The energy intake of underweight group of 4~5-year old (1338.2 kcal) and 6-year old was lower than Koreans %DRI for those age group. Folate and dietary fiber intakes of obese group were significantly lower than underweight (p < 0.01, p < 0.05). For 4~5-year old, vitamin $B_6$ intakes of obese group were significantly higher than obese group (p < 0.05). For 6-year old, obese group showed that intake of vitamin $B_1$ was significantly higher than the other three groups, and intake of vitamin $B_1$ of overweight group was significantly higher than the other three groups. Taken together, these results indicate that there were significant differences in the nutrient intake level and dietary habits of preschool children by body weight status in Daegu area. Therefore, parents (family) and caregivers should be aware of the prevalence of obesity and nutritional status of preschool children, and start nutrition education as soon as possible.