A Study on the Change in Dietary Patterns of Some Elementary School Children in Seoul - concerning the Frequent Use of Computers -

서울지역 일부 초등학생의 식생활 양상 변화에 대한 연구 - 컴퓨터 사용을 중심으로 -

This study was conducted to investigate the changes of dietary attitudes and behaviors in relation to the use of computers of elementary school children in Seoul. The total of 451 elementary school children, consisting of 235 females and 216 males, participated in the study. The result of domestic characteristics, dietary attitudes and behaviors, the level of the use of computers, and health-related symptoms of the subjects were achieved through the questionnaires as follows: The average height, weight, BMI and obesity-index of the participants were 149.0 cm, 42.4 kg, 19.0, -8.6, respectively. Anions subjects, 42.8％ answered their bed times were between 11~12 pm, and 82.4％ answered that they had extracurricular activities. The most desired activity as their leisure was computer works (female: 44.3％, male: 62.5％). 38.4％ of children used the computers for 1~2 hours a day and the most general usage of computers was a computer game (66.1％). The changes in dietary habits of the subjects were such as eating faster(30.2％), having lots of snacks(28.8％), eating anything at hand(26.4％), skipping breakfast due to over-sleeping(18.4％). As changes in life patterns, those in the time managements for watching T.V.(35.3％), reading(35.0％), exercising(31.9％), sleeping(27.5％), relaxing(27.5％) and other hobbies(26.4％) were observed. In conclusion, many children were being affected by the socioeconomic factors changing the environments, especially by the need for the use of computers. The rates of eating alone and skipping breakfast were getting higher in the dietary patterns of elementary school children. We found that the changes in social environments according to the heavy use of the computer were affecting on their dietary pattern. The direction and method of nutrition education had to be established for the proper understanding of the desirable dietary behaviors.