Abstract
This study was performed to find out the patterns of health food usage among the adults residing in Seoul. The majority of respondents were female (72.2%), who were 40∼49 years old (42.2%), and 53.4% had college education or over. Of the 618 respondents surveyed, more than half (56.3%) was found to take health food. The respondents responded that the most important factors for maintaining healthy body were proper eating habit (4.38 out of 5), and good rest and enough sleep (4.38). Depending on the general characteristics and the age of the subject, there were significant differences in the usage and the kind of health food, respectively Probiotic beverage was the most frequently used by the age group of 20's due to its affordable price. The most popular health food items were ginseng, herbal medicine, and animal protein. The main reasons for taking health food were to maintain health (49.7%) and to recover from the fatigue (22.6%). When selecting health food, they considered side effect, effectiveness, cleanliness, reliability of company and price. The motivation for purchasing health food came from family members and relatives (45%), subjects themselves (27%), and commercial advertisement (10%). Pharmacy and health food store were the popular places for purchasing them.
