Korean Female Adolescents' Food Attitudes and Food Intake Relative to the Korean Food Tower (II) : Food Attitudes

The food attitudes of 285 Korean female students attending a secondary school in Seoul were examined with respect to the 5 food groups of the Korean Food Tower : grain products, vegetables and fruits, meat, milk, and fats and sweets. An instrument with 22 items was utilized to measure food attitudes toward the five food groups. The items were categorized into five factors through factor analysis to obtain a description of the participants' food attitudes. The five factors are conscious choice of food, health concerns, economics and time influence, interest in foods, and foods that energize. Several facts emerged from examining the food attitudes. The most evident was their response to the items concerning the influence of economics and time on food choice, which the majority consider not limiting their food consumption. Most participants gave favorable responses for vegetables and fruits on all the five factors, but gave unfavorable responses for meat group and fats and sweets in health concerns. They also gave favorable responses for“foods that energize”for all except fats and sweets. Four of the total 25 relationships among food intake (five groups) and food attitudes (five factors) were found to have significant positive correlations (p < .01). (J Community Nutrition 4(3) : 180∼186, 2002)