The Condition of Nutrition Education for Elementary School Teachers and $5^{th}&6^{th}$ Grades Students in a Part of Gyeonggi Area

경기 일부 초등학교 고학년생과 교사의 영양교육에 대한 인식조사

This study aimed to investigate how the current elementary school teachers think about nutrition education, how they are teaching, and what kind of problems have occurred. And this study was made to provide basic materials to be used for the effective nutrition education in the elementary school. The survey was done on 60 elementary school teachers and 570 elementary school students of the 5th and 6th grade in Gyeonggi Province by questionnaire and analyzed for the perception of nutrition education, current status of nutrition education, nutrition knowledge and cooking knowledge. The average scores of nutrition knowledge were 2.72 for male and 3.75 for female students out of full score of 5. The fifth grade students learned more nutrition education than the sixth grade ones in accordance with the different curricula. Nutrition education was taught as apart of other subjects(87%) and mainly done by lectures. For most of the students, information source of the nutrition education was the meal service(47.4%) and the most common one was the Internet that 38.1 % of the teachers used. Most of the students responded that nutrition education was necessary in the curriculum of elementary school for proper growth(36.2%), intelligence(25.9%), health(21.5%), and dieting(16.4%). The perception for the suitable teacher was in the order of nutrition specialist and dietician. And the right time of the related class was in the order of spare time everyday, a special activity time, and the meal service time. The important contents of nutrition education were in the order of proper eating habits, growth & nutrition, food hygiene and diseases. Nutrition problems of the elementary students were in the order of unbalanced diet, too much ingestion of processed and instant foods, lack of table manners, and child fatness and weakness. 80.0% of the teachers supported the early nutrition education and demanded it should begin when children are in kindergarten. The analysis showed that nutrition education should be taught by parents(29.4%), teachers(29.2%), and nutritionists(25.9%) and that family and school should cooperate closely. Main responses of the teachers to the children's problems were that they had too much instant food, did not eat in a variety, and had no manners in eating. Ironically, they thought malnutrition, fainting and growth stunt were not important nutrition related problems.