The Usage of Diet and Nutritional Information on the Internet by Users' Age

이용자의 연령에 따른 인터넷 상의 식생활 및 영양 정보 이용

The purpose of this study was to develop a web site providing sound and specific diet and nutritional information for internet users in different age groups to protect themselves from junk nutritional information. Among 660 internal users (436 in their 20s, 154 in their 30s, and 63 in their 40s), 66.4% had access to a computer to get nutritional information. Almost 38% of those in their 20s searched in the internet using the term 'diet', whereas 25.9% of those in their 30s and 27.1% of those in their 40s searched using 'cooking and recipe'(p<0.001). The main purpose of using nutritional information on the internet of the subjects was 'to take care of health'(p<0.001). Seventy percent of subjects answered 'so-so' for the satisfaction about the content of nutritional information that was self-explored. Contents related to nutritional information which needed to be improved was 'sound information' for 47.2% of those in their 30s, 'convenience for the application to daily life' for 51.1% of those in their 20s, and 39.6% of those in their 40s. A specialized nutritional information site must to be developed for users to gain access to reliable and valuable information without difficulty, as the variety of the interested area and application area for each user.