• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.447-456
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• 2020

Purpose: Food insecurity, which is the inability to obtain food or inadequate food consumption in terms of quality and quantity, has physical and psychological consequences on children's health. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between children's growth disorders and food insecurity in Qazvin city, Iran. Methods: A case-control study was conducted on 177 cases and 355 controls of children aged 3 to 6 years, who were referred to health centers in Qazvin city. The case group consisted of children with growth disorders. Data were obtained with the 18-item US Department of Agriculture questionnaire, a household socioeconomic questionnaire, a and growth monitoring card. The data were analyzed with using IBM SPSS Version 22.0, by independent sample t-test, chi-square test, and logistic regression. Results: A significant relationship was found between children's growth disorders and household food insecurity with (p<0.05, odds ratio [OR]=17.0, confidence interval [CI]=5.9, 48.8) and without hunger (p<0.05, OR=2.69, CI=1.4, 4.9). There were also significant relationships between children's growth disorders and socioeconomic status (p<0.05, OR=3.4, CI=1.4, 8.5), the duration of breastfeeding (p<0.05, OR=0.94, CI=0.9, 0.98), and children's ages (p<0.05, OR=0.94, CI=0.92, 0.96). Sex and birth order, and the age of the parents was not found to be significantly related with growth disorders. Conclusion: Lower socioeconomic status and household food insecurity were the important predictors of children's growth disorders. Policymakers should focus more on promoting steady employment and income among family members. Nutritional education for mothers is also recommended, in order to better meet the nutritional needs of the children.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.26-34
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• 2008

This cross-sectional study assessed household food insecurity among low-income rural communities and examined its association with demographic and socioeconomic factors as well as coping strategies to minimize food insecurity. Demographic, socioeconomic, expenditure and coping strategy data were collected from 200 women of poor households in a rural community in Malaysia. Households were categorized as either food secure (n=84) or food insecure (n=116) using the Radimer/Cornell Hunger and Food Insecurity instrument. T-test, Chi-square and logistic regression were utilized for comparison of factors between food secure and food insecure households and determination of factors associated with household food insecurity, respectively. More of the food insecure households were living below the poverty line, had a larger household size, more children and school-going children and mothers as housewives. As food insecure households had more school-going children, reducing expenditures on the children's education is an important strategy to reduce household expenditures. Borrowing money to buy foods, receiving foods from family members, relatives and neighbors and reducing the number of meals seemed to cushion the food insecure households from experiencing food insufficiency. Most of the food insecure households adopted the strategy on cooking whatever is available at home for their meals. The logistic regression model indicates that food insecure households were likely to have more children (OR=1.71; p<0.05) and non-working mothers (OR=6.15; p<0.05), did not own any land (OR=3.18; p<0.05) and adopted the strategy of food preparation based on whatever is available at their homes (OR=4.33; p<0.05). However, mothers who reported to borrow money to purchase food (OR=O.84; p<0.05) and households with higher incomes of fathers (OR=O.99; p<0.05) were more likely to be food secure. Understanding the factors that contribute to household food insecurity is imperative so that effective strategies could be developed and implemented.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.660-672
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to evaluate dietary habit and nutritional status by household income in female adults, using data from the $4^{th}$ Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007~2009). Subjects were 8,356 women over the age of 20 years. The subjects were classified into 4 groups by household income level. Dietary data from 24 hr recall methods were used to analyze nutritional status. The obesity rate of the low income group was significantly higher than the rates of other income groups. Additionally, the nutritional status of the low income group was worse than those of other groups. The percentage of carbohydrate in total energy intake was higher and food security status was lower in the low income group than in other groups. Awareness and adherence to dietary guidelines were also lower in the low income group. Adherence to a dietary guideline of 'avoiding salty foods and trying to eat foods with bland taste' and 'eating a variety of foods from each food group' were lower than those of other groups. However, the frequency of skipping breakfast among the low income group was lower than that of others. Therefore, this study suggested that low income women should decrease the percentage of carbohydrate in total energy intake and adhere to dietary guidelines, especially those of avoiding salty foods and eating a variety of food groups, in order to improve their nutritional status.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.111-120
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• 2005

Recently, the number of elderly people in the rural area of Korea has increased remarkably and their food security has become deteriorated mainly due to the low economic status. To investigate the food security for the elderly people, relevant data were obtained by offering questionnaire to the rural elderly people who were engaging in traditional agricultural production for daily foods. The subjects of 1870 were collected in 9 provinces according to PPS(Probability Proportional to Size). Questionnaire contained the items of dietary habit, food cultivation, Production and Preservation, and the suey was conducted by trained interviewers. SAS (ver 8.1) was used for statistical analyses in which Chi-square tests and General Linear Models were made. Family of the elderly people was $45.4\%$ of the total and the characteristics of elderly families were that age of male head was 82.1 years and that of female was 67.7 years, and that $68.8\%$ of elderly women were working for family income or pocket money. The elderly families' food cultivation state was surveyed and they were pepper$(59.1\%)$, chinese cabbage$(61.91\%)$, and sesame$(48.6\%)$ for their own consumption. But, bean sprout$(6.5\%)$, tofu$(7.7\%)$ and egg$(5.1\%)$ showed low rate of cultivation for the family. The rate of cultivating chinese cabbage$(61.9\%)$, and sesame$(48.6\%)$ was significantly higher than that of middle aged family. At the status of fermented food production for the elderly family, Doenjang$(87.4\%)$ and Gochujang$(86.3\%)$ Kanjang$(84.0\%)$ Kimchi$(92.9\%)$ Jangachi$(27.6\%)$ and Meju$(91.61\%)$maintained higher rate than that of middle aged families' Food preservation of elderly families was low and there are just jam$(5.3\%)$ and bottled products$(1.4\%)$. A little higher rate was observed lot the preserved food such as alcohol$(9.9\%)$ and powder$(9.8\%)$. For the elderly family the score of food cultivation was 4.08/12 points and that of food preservation was 0.62/12 points. The score of fermented food production for elderly family was 10.24/12 points which was significantly different from that of middle aged family (9.58/12 points, p<0.001). This result suggests that for the elderly people food with more protein is needed for production.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.22-39
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• 2017

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the nutritional status and dietary behavior of Korean and Chinese elementary school children using Nutritional Quotient (NQ). Methods: The survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires to the parents of the child, after selecting four elementary schools located in Pusan city of Korea and three elementary schools located in Luoyang city, Henan Province of China, from Grade 1 to Grade 6 in each school. Results: The NQ scores of Korean children and Chinese children were 64.99 and 66.57, respectively, which did not show a statistically significant difference. Korean children significantly showed higher diversity score (p<0.001) than Chinese, but Chinese children significantly showed higher moderation (p < 0.001), regularity (p < 0.001) and practice score (p < 0.01) than Korean. NQ grades showed a statistically significant difference. According to food security of the household, NQ scores of the Chinese children of secure household were significantly higher than those of food insecurity household (p < 0.01). In particular, it showed a significant difference in the practice (p < 0.001), moderation (p < 0.05) and regularity score (p < 0.05). Korean children's NQ score showed a significant correlation with the score of following the Dietary Guidelines of parents, but Chinese did not show such a correlation. Conclusions: There were differences in children's dietary behaviors and parents' impact to children's dietary attitude between Korean and Chinese. NQ developed for Korean could be successfully applied to Chinese.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.479-484
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• 2001

Gyong-gi province has been the political, social, economical center of Korea since the three Kingdom period, Koryo, Chosun dynasty. As a result, the area enjoys abundant local food culture. However, due to the truce line going through the province, it was divided into northern and southern region. Development of the northern Gyong-gi province has been restricted because of security and defence reasons. So, even though it has kept abundant local food heritage compared to other regions. local food products have not been fully developed. Furthermore, as bed towns of Seoul and new towns are constructed in this region, traditional and local culture has been vanished gradually and the regional uniqueness is disappearing. This report focuses on identifying unique local foods of northern Gyong-gj province where tourist site development is limited and finding out how to utilize these as international tourism resource in the 21$\^$th/ century, the era of reunified Korea. Now, we need to seek ways to overcome the current difficulties and utilize the heritage of food culture and develop It in a form that suits the taste of modern consumers.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.425-432
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• 2015

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Food insecurity has been suggested as being negatively associated with healthy behaviors and health status. This study was performed to identify the associations between food insecurity and healthy behaviors among Korean adults. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The data used were the 2011 Community Health Survey, cross-sectional representative samples of 253 communities in Korea. Food insecurity was defined as when participants reported that their family sometimes or often did not get enough food to eat in the past year. Healthy behaviors were considered as non-smoking, non-high risk drinking, participation in physical activities, eating a regular breakfast, and maintaining a normal weight. Multiple logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to identify the association between food insecurity and healthy behaviors. RESULTS: The prevalence of food insecurity was 4.4% (men 3.9%, women 4.9%). Men with food insecurity had lower odds ratios (ORs) for non-smoking, 0.75 (95% CI: 0.68-0.82), participation in physical activities, 0.82 (95% CI: 0.76-0.90), and eating a regular breakfast, 0.66 (95% CI: 0.59-0.74), whereas they had a higher OR for maintaining a normal weight, 1.19 (95% CI: 1.09-1.30), than men with food security. Women with food insecurity had lower ORs for non-smoking, 0.77 (95% CI: 0.66-0.89), and eating a regular breakfast, 0.79 (95% CI: 0.72-0.88). For men, ORs for obesity were 0.78 (95% CI: 0.70-0.87) for overweight and 0.56 (95% CI: 0.39-0.82) for mild obesity. For women, the OR for moderate obesity was 2.04 (95% CI: 1.14-3.63) as compared with normal weight. CONCLUSIONS: Food insecurity has a different impact on healthy behaviors. Provision of coping strategies for food insecurity might be critical to improve healthy behaviors among the population.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.264-276
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• 2023

Purpose: Food environmental factors related to food insecurity affect household food intake in several socio-ecological aspects. This study explores the relationship between food environment factors and food insecurity in households with married immigrant women. Methods: From November 2018 to February 2020, a survey was conducted enrolling 249 married immigrant women residing in the metropolitan areas of South Korea. In the final analysis, 229 subjects were divided into 2 groups classified as food security (n = 154) and food insecurity (n = 75), as assessed by the score of food security. Three aspects of food environments were measured: built·natural, political·economic, and socio-cultural Results: Food environments were significantly different between food security and food insecurity groups, as follows: the number of foods market and their distance from the home and food status for the last week at home in the built·natural domain; monthly cost of food purchase and experience for food assistance in the political·economic domain; total score of social support, parenting, and cooking skills in the socio-cultural domain. A stepwise multivariate linear regression model showed a negative association between the food insecurity score with social support from family and food inventory status in the last week. After adjusting for confounders, a positive association was obtained between the experience of a food support program. The final regression model explains about 30% of the relationship obtained in the three food environment domains and food insecurity (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Not only economic factors, which are common determinants of household food insecurity, but socio-cultural factors such as social support also affect household food insecurity. Therefore, plans for implementing a food assistance program to improve food insecurity for households with immigrant women should consider financial support as well as other comprehensive aspects, including socio-cultural domain such as social support from family and community.

• Proceedings of the KSCN Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.255-255
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.1625-1632
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• 2009

This study investigated consumer awareness on imported food safety management. The questionnaire explored status for confirmation as imported foods, consideration factors when imported foods were marketed, ways for finding imported food safety information, people responsible for problems in imported foods safety management, and imported food safety management items. Answers to 1065 questionnaires were analyzed using S-Plus 8.0. The principal results were as follows: 35.7% of respondents always confirmed whether it was imported food. The most important imported foods marketed is children food. 55.1% of respondents think inspectors have responsibility for problems of imported foods safety management. The most important factor for improvement of safety is reinforcement of quarantine. The providing of restricted information only after security problem occurs was the reason for non-satisfaction of safety information.